Rush’s Geddy Lee has shared his thoughts on the band’s final tour and revealed one of his regrets about the way the band ended.
In a new interview with Classic Rock, Lee admitted that he felt bad about not being able to perform for their European and British fans.
“I’d pushed really hard to get more gigs so that we could do those extra shows and I was unsuccessful,” Lee said about the ‘R40 Live Tour.’ “I really felt like I let our British and European fans down. It felt to me incorrect that we didn’t do it, but Neil [Peart] was adamant that he would only do thirty shows and that was it.”
Neil Peart didn’t want to tour again with Rush. He was ready to retire from music entirely, something he would officially do a few months after the tour ended. But that doesn’t mean he gave up on his performances during the final shows. “That to him was a huge compromise because he didn’t want to do any shows. He didn’t want to do one show,” Lee added.
In the same chat, Alex Lifeson remembered a time when Peart might have considered extending the tour. “There was a point where I think Neil was open to maybe extending the run. Then, he got this painful infection in one of his feet. I mean, he could barely walk to the stage at one point.”
Lifeson explained that Peart had to use a golf cart to get to the stage because walking hurt too much. But once he sat behind the drums, he was fully focused. “He played a three-hour show, at the same intensity he played every single show.”
Rush’s ‘R40 Live Tour’ started in May 2015 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and included 35 shows across North America before wrapping up in August.
Although the fans asked for more shows, it turned out to be the band’s last tour. The band’s break-up wasn’t confirmed until Peart’s death in January 2020, even though their final album, ‘Clockwork Angels,’ was released in 2012.
