RUSH’s Alex Lifeson – “I Don’t Think This Is The End”

In a new interview with Billboard, Rush’s Alex Lifeson addresses rumours of the band’s demise.

“That question was posed many times: Is this is? Is this the end?” Lifeson tells Billboard. “I don’t think it is the end, and we never really said this is definitively our last tour. I think it’s likely to be our last major tour, but we’re still in contact, very close contact with each other, all three of us, and I don’t think it’s certainly the end of the band. There are still lots of things we want to do. It’s not to say that we wouldn’t do something in the future on a smaller scale, and there’s always the fun project of making a record, which we’ve all loved forever. Right now I think we’re just kind of relaxing and taking it in and getting reconnected with our families and friends and more of a domestic life, and then we’ll kinda sort of review it, I think, in the new year and see what we want to do.”

Lifeson adds that reports about his arthritis were a bit overstated — “Who my age doesn’t have some aches and pains?” explains the guitarist, who still boasts an impressive 10 handicap for golf — but Peart’s issues with tendinitis are more debilitating. “It’s a very difficult endeavor for Neil,” Lifeson says. “It’s very physical, and it hurts. It’s painful for him to play for three hours the way he does, so it’s come to a point in his life where he just can’t tour anymore.” 

Read more at Billboard.

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 & 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.

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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”

“Tom Sawyer”:

“Spirit Of Radio”:

“Closer To The Heart”:

“Roll The Bones”:

Trailer: