Rush have reflected on their 2015 farewell tour, acknowledging that they “let our British and European fans down” by not performing shows abroad. In a new interview with Classic Rock, bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson discussed the band’s conclusive world tour, which coincided with drummer Neil Peart‘s failing health.
“I’d pushed really hard to get more gigs so that we could do those extra shows and I was unsuccessful,” Lee said in the interview. “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 was adamant that he would only do thirty 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. So, in his mind, he’d compromised already. He said, I’ll do thirty gigs, don’t ask me for any more.’”
Lee added that he felt he described Peart’s eventual death in his 2023 memoir, My Effin’ Life, because “I owed an explanation to them, the audience.”
“It’s part of why I went into the detail I did about Neil’s passing in the book, was to let fans in on what went down,” Lee said. “That it wasn’t a straight line. This is how complicated the whole world of Rush became since Aug. 1 of 2015 until Jan. 7 of 2020 when Neil passed. Those were very unusual, complicated, emotional times. Fans invested their whole being into our band and I thought they deserved a somewhat straight answer about what happened and how their favorite band came to end.”
Lifeson added, “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. 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.”
Rush embarked on their farewell tour, the R40 Live Tour, in May of 2015. The tour coincided with the 40th anniversary of Peart joining the Canadian prog-rock band. It featured 33 North American dates, concluding at Los Angeles’ the Forum on Aug. 1, 2015. Peart died in 2020 from brain cancer.
Lee previously reflected on playing his final show with Peart in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying, “It all fell together and I realized, ‘OK, this is the end of this period for me.’ The grief has to end, and something else has to replace it. What do you replace it with? Remembrance, respect, and homage.”
He added that he and Lifeson have considered continuing to tour together, but wouldn’t do it under the name Rush. “I don’t know how comfortable we would be doing that, calling ourselves Rush, and it’s all speculation because… Honestly, it’s unlikely to happen,” he said. “That’s a conversation for probably another time, but we might not be super comfortable. But we could always call ourselves some other stupid name, or Rash.”