This year marks 10 years since Rush wrapped up their final tour, with members Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart taking the stage together for the last time. That 2015 show also marked Peart’s last, as later that year the drummer officially announced his retirement from music. Five years later, in 2020, Peart passed away from cancer.
Rush’s decision to call it quits largely had to do with the physical tolls of touring, made more difficult by the band members’ ages and chronic health conditions.
Now, in a recent interview with Classic Rock, Lifeson and Lee recalled a few moments from that last tour. At one point, when the interviewer noted how Peart’s mood seemed to be “lifting” on that tour, while Lee’s “darkened,” Lifeson admitted he wasn’t doing too well on that tour either.
“Well, I was more in Ged’s camp,” he said. “We were playing well, the show was so much fun for us and our audience, and we had good energy despite playing three-hour shows in our sixties. Ged and I were disappointed that Neil demanded playing only a limited number of dates which precluded a UK and European run. I think a dozen or so more dates would have made us a bit more accepting.”
He continued, saying that they probably would have played a few more shows, but Peart’s health prevented them from extending the tour: “And 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. I mean, he could barely walk to the stage at one point.”
“They got him a golf cart to drive him to the stage. 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,” he added.
The interviewer then recalled a touching moment during Rush’s final show, when Peart stood up from behind his drums to go hug his bandmates. “The first time in forty years he’d done that,” Lee noted. “It was a beautiful moment.”
Reflecting on that last show, Lifeson remembered having a “weird feeling” while playing that night.
“I remember being on stage and thinking how many times we’d played the Forum and wondering just how many times we’d done ‘Working Man’ there because it’s pretty much been in the set since day one,” he said.
“It was a weird feeling knowing that was likely the last time we’d play any of those songs together. I tried to soak in every moment and object at that last gig. I counted down the minutes on the giant clock they have there, you can see it from the stage.”
“And I stared at all these faces, people that I didn’t know personally, yet happily greeted when I saw them return to so many of our shows over so many years; I looked at my bandmates and missed them already and I felt sad to see such joy in Neil’s face when we were down to the last few bars of our last song played together, as we finally finished our set.”
