RUSH – Geddy Lee Responds To Neil Peart’s Drumhead Mag Retirement Announcement – “I Think Neil Is Just Explaining His Reasons For Not Wanting To Tour, With The Toll That It's Taking On His Body”

Rush frontman Geddy Lee has responded to bandmate/drummer Neil Peart’s “retirement” announcement from earlier this week.

Neil told Drumhead Magazine: “Lately Olivia (Louise, Neil’s daughter) has been introducing me to new friends at school as ‘My dad – he’s a retired drummer.’ True to say, funny to hear. And it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to… take yourself out of the game. I would rather set it aside then face the predicament described in our song “Losing It” (‘Sadder still to watch it die, than never to have known it’).”

Lee tells Prog magazine: “There’s really nothing to say. I think Neil is just explaining his reasons for not wanting to tour, with the toll that it’s taking on his body. That’s all I would care to comment on it.

“We’ll get together eventually and chat about things. But in my view, there is certainly nothing surprising in what he said. Neil just feels that he has to explain with all the thousands of people asking, ‘Why no more tours?’ He needs to explain his side of it.”

Asked whether he feels Peart’s quote was taken out of context, Lee adds: “I think that’s absolutely right. That’s their job. Talking about something when there’s nothing to talk about.”

Stay tuned for updates.

Rush has uploaded their performance of instrumental classic “YYZ”, taken from newly released DVD and Blu-ray, R40 Live.

All roads have led to this. Forty-one years in the making, the R40 Live tour took a very real journey back through time. Beginning with the grand design: a state-of-the-art stage set that pivots, rolls and dives, and brings Clockwork Angels in to bombastic, colorful life before marching stridently back in time (through theatre stages, a panoply of band and fan shots, the accrued memories of a life spent playing live) to a mocked-up school gym and the band playing there; a solitary bass amp set on the chair behind Geddy Lee, a mirror ball spiraling crazily above, casting thin rods of light like a light rain across the crowd, “Working Man” coming to a shuddering halt as the band’s beginning becomes their end.

Rush recorded and filmed R40 Live over two sold-out shows in the band’s hometown of Toronto at the Air Canada Centre on June 17th and 19th, 2015 in the middle of their R40 Live 35-date North American tour.

R40 Live had the trio of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, performing a career-spanning live retrospective, celebrating their 40+ years together. The epic live shows by the Rock Hall of Famers were captured with 14 cameras to present the band feature-film style.

Order this title in various formats at this location, or via the Amazon widgets below.

Tracklisting:

Set One
“The World Is.. The World Is…”
“The Anarchist”
“Headlong Flight”
“Far Cry”
“The Main Monkey Business”
“How It Is”
“Animate”
“Roll The Bones”
“Between The Wheels”
“Losing It” (with Ben Mink)
“Subdivisions”

Set Two
“No Country For Old Hens”
“Tom Sawyer”
“YYZ”
“The Spirit Of Radio”
“Natural Science”
“Jacob’s Ladder”
“Hemispheres: Prelude”
“Cygnus X-1”/“The Story So Far ”(drum solo)
“Closer To The Heart”
“Xanadu”
“2112”

Encore
“Mel’s Rockpile” (with Eugene Levy)
“Lakeside Park”/“Anthem”
“What You’re Doing”/“Working Man”
“Exit Stage Left”

Bonus
“One Little Victory”
“Distant Early Warning”
“Red Barchetta”