Rush just graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, an honor that follows the Canadian power trio’s 2013 induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. So if the band’s current 40^th anniversary tour turns out to be its last full campaign as hinted (in the wake of personal preferences and health limitations), Rush might be going out with a bang.

Rush fans were surely hoping to get bang for the buck Tuesday at the TD Garden, the tour’s sole New England date, completely packed despite pricey tickets. And hopefully the trio will not retire from the stage after its members showed that, given rehearsal, they can still execute their prog-rock fusion with skill and finesse.

It doesn’t hurt that Rush conjured a vintage dream set for the second half of its near-three-hour retrospective, which began with recent material and wove back in time. Not that the first set was lackluster, with songs from 2012’s surprisingly vital Clockwork Angels, rarity “How It Is” — driven by singer Geddy Lee’s knotty bass curls, which evoked Chris Squire from prog icons Yes (who are yet to make the Rock Hall) — and “Subdivisions,” which proved the men of Rush have aged better than that synth-laced song’s original video about high-school outcasts.

Rush embraced its own geeky image with intermission videos that showed the trio in goofy skits, cameos by actors such as Paul Rudd and Eugene Levy, and a South Park countdown that led into “Tom Sawyer” – Rush’s most popular song — to open the second set. Second quick hit “The Spirit of Radio” bridged the longer, moodier pieces “The Camera Eye” and “Jacob’s Ladder,” with its spray of lasers. But the gags wore thin when stage hands in red jumpsuits randomly adjusted fake ’70s-style amplifier stacks during drummer Neil Peart’s cascading fills on the second set’s like-period kit (complete with chimes, cowbells and an impossibly high rack of upper toms). The revered Peart made good use of it all during an astounding solo in “Cygnus X-1,” a dark, two-part sci-fi concept piece surrounded by other late ’70s nuggets, including the textural fantasy “Xanadu” (with Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson riffing on their old double-neck instruments) and a 13-minute take on the “2112” suite.

That’s when Rush truly abandoned raw, Zeppelin-esque rock for higher ambitions, lyrically and musically. So an encore of simpler early tunes (down to single amps perched on chairs) seemed anti-climactic. Nonetheless, the finale of “Working Man” pointed up the band’s ethic for a job well done, built across 40 years of evolution.