Rock band Rush regret ‘letting fans down’ with short final tour
The surviving members of 1980s hitmaking-band Rush have revealed they regret their final tour being so short.
The progressive rock group played their last gigs almost a decade ago, but now Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, both 71, say they feel they ‘really let down’ fans in the UK and Europe after not pushing harder to take the R40 Live gigs outside of North America.
Late drummer Neil Peart had been opposed to more shows and only wanted a limited run.
‘I’d pushed really hard to get more gigs so that we could do those extra shows and I was unsuccessful,’ Geddy told Classic Rock magazine, as he shared the lasting impact of that on him emotionally over the years.
He added: ‘It felt to me incorrect that we didn’t do it, but Neil was adamant that he would only do 30 shows and that was it. That to him was a huge compromise because he didn’t want to do any shows. He didn’t want to do one show.’
Despite Peart’s restrictions on the tour and his health issues, Lifeson admitted a ‘dozen or so’ extra dates may have made the band ‘a bit more accepting’.
The guitarist explained: ‘There was a point where I think Neil was open to maybe extending the run and adding in a few more shows, but then he got this painful infection in one of his feet.’
He recalled that Peart could ‘barely walk to the stage at one point’ and had to be driven to it in a golf cart instead.
‘And he played a three-hour show, at the intensity he played every single show. That was amazing, but I think that was the point where he decided that the tour was only going to go on until that final show in LA.’
The tour kicked off in Tulka, Oklahoma, in May 2015 and ran for 35 dates across the US and Canada until August that year.
The group only confirmed they had gone their separate ways following Peart’s death in 2020, but Lee – who reflected on their final tour in his 2023 book My Effin’ Life – admitted it was a ‘complicated’ time for them.
However, he felt he ‘owed an explanation to the audience’, which was why he opted to go into the detail he did about Peart’s death in his book as it ‘wasn’t a straight line’.
‘This is how complicated the whole world of Rush became since August 1 of 2015 until January 7 of 2020 when Neil passed,’ he shared, calling them ‘very unusual, complicated, emotional times’.
But Lee is aware that some of their fans ‘invested their whole being into our band’, which made him feel obliged to provide a ‘somewhat straight answer about what happened and how their favourite band came to end’.
Peart died aged 67 in January 2020 from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, the diagnosis of which had been kept secret for over three years.
The announcement was made on January 10, with a message on Rush’s official website reading: ‘It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate of over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer (Glioblastoma).
‘We ask that friends, fans and media alike understandably respect the family’s need for privacy and peace at this extremely painful and difficult time. Those wishing to express their condolences can choose a cancer research group or charity of their choice and make a donation in Neil’s name.’
The group had their biggest run of successful albums in the 80s and 90s (Picture: Fin Costello/Redferns)
Rush was formed in Toronto in 1968 by Lifeson, drummer John Rutsey, and bassist and vocalist Jeff Jones, with the line-up changing over the years before it settled in 1974 with the classic power trio of Lifeson, Geddy and Peart.
They enjoyed their biggest commercial success in the 80s and 90s in Canada, the US and the UK with albums like Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, Signals and Grace Under Pressure, all of which charted in the UK’s top five.
Rock band Rush regret ‘letting fans down’ with short final tour