“We played at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert with the Foo Fighters. After we finished our set, everyone was encouraging us to go back on tour”: Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee look back on the moment that sparked the idea for a Rush reunion

Back in October, Rush delighted prog rock fans worldwide by announcing the Fifty Something reunion tour across North America. What's more, they recently added UK, Europe, and South America shows to the bill, with 24 shows across 13 countries slated for 2027.

Jeff Beck’s drummer, virtuoso Anika Nilles, will be filling in for the late, legendary Neil Peart, alongside Loren Gold, who has worked with the likes of The Who, Roger Daltrey, and Don Felder, on keyboards.

And while the legendary band has already sold over half a million tickets for the North American leg of the tour, reuniting as Rush was far from an easy decision. In fact, it has been years in the making.

“I think the first attempt that Alex [Lifeson] and I had of thinking about another tour was after we played here in London at Taylor Hawkins tribute concert with the Foo Fighters,” Geddy Lee tells Planet Rock.

“That was an incredibly emotional day – and there was such an easy, happy, loving environment backstage between the musicians that, when we finished our set, we gathered with a bunch of them backstage, all of them encouraging us to go back on tour.”

Rush on UK Tour, Writing New Music, Neil Peart Tribute & The Who Keyboard player - YouTube

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He continues, “So when we got back to Toronto, we were still kind of high from that moment, and we started talking about it, because it felt like, in some way, we had denied our participation in Rush once the band stopped, and so playing again with different drummers, we sort of reclaimed the music.

“It was important to recognize that it didn't just end in 2015 [after Peart's retirement from touring] – there's still some joy to be had playing our own songs.”

Lee goes on to say that, despite the initial enthusiasm, Lifeson wasn't so keen, and the “whole idea fizzled out”.

“We just carried on being friends, which is a full-time job – trying to keep him out of my wine cellar is hard,” he quips.

Lifeson carried on working on his other projects, which included featuring on Marco Minnemann’s 2017 record, Borrego; forming the supergroup Envy of None, whose debut album was released in 2022; and even working on his own solo material.

“There was an opportunity to get together [with Lee] for a project,” the guitarist explains. “So we did that – we just kind of jammed, trying to get the fingers in shape. The next thing we knew, we thought we'd play some Rush songs. We really hadn't played them in a few years, and it was just so much fun.

“When we began talking about it more seriously, the whole idea started to gather steam, and it turned into this great project to get back into shape and to become a full-time player of Rush music."

However, it wasn't as easy as the two had expected – especially considering all the decades they spent playing the Rush repertoire.

“When you do it every day for 40 years, you can read a newspaper while you're playing, but when you get away from it and revisit it, you suddenly realize, those songs are hard!” he concludes.

Lifeson and Lee – together with Nilles and Gold – have been practicing relentlessly for what is bound to be a historic return.

Tickets for the newly announced shows go on sale on February 27 at 10 am local time. For more information, head to Rush's official website.

In more recent Rush news, Lifeson revealed his biggest challenge when preparing for the Rush reunion tour.