Rush reflects on ‘wrong’ decision to cut short final tour

The surviving members of Canadian progressive rock band Rush have looked back on their final tour and expressed their regret that it didn’t expand to areas such as the UK and Europe.

Nearly ten years after their last performance, Rush bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson are interviewed classic rock The magazine profiled the band’s final performances and apologized to British and European fans who had not had the opportunity to see them perform live.

“I tried really hard to get more shows so that we could do these extra shows, but I didn’t succeed,” Lee said of the band’s R40 live tour. “I really feel like I’ve let our British and European fans down. I feel like we’re wrong for not doing that, but Neil [Peart] He insisted on only doing thirty shows and that was it.

“It was a huge compromise for him because he didn’t want to do any shows. He didn’t want to do a show.

Rush’s R40 Live Tour kicked off in May 2015 in Tulsala, Oklahoma, and played 35 shows in the United States and the band’s native Canada before concluding in August of that year. Ultimately, despite calls from Rush’s loyal fan base for more dates, this would be the veteran band’s final show. Despite releasing their last album, clockwork angelRush did not disband in 2012 until the death of long-time drummer Neil Peart in January 2020.

Although Lee detailed the band’s final tour in his 2023 memoir, My Efen lifewho admits to being cautious in how he discusses Peart’s death, but strives to be as candid as possible in order to give Rush listeners the ending they want about the band’s end.

“I just feel like I owe them, the audience, an explanation,” Lee explained. “That’s part of the reason I went into detail about Neil’s death in the book, so fans understand what happened. It’s not a straight line.

“The whole Rush world became so complicated between August 1, 2015, and Neil’s death on January 7, 2020. It was a very unusual, complex, emotional time. Fans put their all into Our band, I think they deserve a straighter answer as to what happened and how their favorite band ended.

Lifeson also expressed disappointment that Rush wouldn’t be able to tour some of their favorite markets in the final round, noting that while Peart’s schedule demands and health issues made further performances impossible, the additional “dozen or so A single date may make surviving the show more difficult. Members are “more receptive”.

“I think there was a time when Neal was willing to extend his run and add a few more performances, but then he got a painful infection in one of his feet,” Lifeson added. “I mean, he could barely get on stage at one point. They bought a golf cart to take him to the stage. He performed for three hours with the intensity of every show.

“It was great, but I think it was at that point that he decided the tour would only continue until the last show in Los Angeles.”

Formed in Toronto in 1968 by Lee, Lifeson and original members John Rutsey and Jeff Jones, Rush began to gain critical acclaim throughout the 1970s, with Peart replacing Rutsey after they recorded their self-titled debut album in 1974.

While most of Rush’s tours are limited to the United States and Canada, the UK is their second most popular market, followed closely by European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. Oddly, Rush rarely ventured beyond these territories, with countries such as Australia never hosting the band on its shores.