In a new interview with Rolling Stone, RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson says that drummer Neil Peart “didn’t even want to do” R40, Rush’s 2015 tour that celebrated 40 years of Rush that ran from May 8th to August 1st, reports bravewords.com.
“We had such a great time on the tour,” Lifeson tells Rolling Stone. “And it was really nice to go through all the material in reverse chronology, and I think our fans really enjoyed it. I think that no matter how long it would have been, it would have been too short. Neil was prepared to commit to 30 dates and he told us that right from the very beginning. He didn’t even want to do the tour, to be honest with you. It’s been increasingly difficult for him, but he committed to the tour and we got through it. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of touring.”
Rush have released the following video, showcasing their classic track ‘Tom Sawyer’ through the years of 2003-2015 from Rush In Rio, R30, Snakes & Arrows Live, Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland, Clockwork Angels Tour, and R40 Live.
Rush frontman Geddy Lee recently sat down with Music Radar and went through a track-by-track overview of the band’s critically acclaimed fourth album, 2112, released in 1976. An excerpt is available below:
Lee: “It begins with the ‘Overture’, which – despite being the first thing you hear – was the last piece to be written, much like with any classical overture. We wanted to take the most important musical threads from each of the subsequent parts to create a ‘new’ piece of music that would represent the album as a whole. So that’s where it all starts.”
“And then ‘The Temples Of Syrinx’ sets the scene, because 2112 is about a totalitarian society that controls everything about your life, including the music that you hear. It manufactures it all, so that’s what we wanted to say with this track. It sets up the hierarchy in this futuristic world that we’ve arrived in.”
“’Discovery’ is where the hero of the story finds a device in a cave. It’s a guitar, but he doesn’t know it because they don’t exist in his time period. So he picks it up and realises that it’s a device that can make music and create sounds. Previous to that point, everything he’d ever heard had been provided to him by the people that run his world.”
Rush Live in 2013
