For Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, coming back as Rush – and playing some of the trickiest songs in the prog-rock legends’ playbook – meant getting back up to speed. Musically and physically. That proved to be a mammoth task in itself.
“It’s a tough show,” Lee says in a recent Rolling Stone interview. “Each night has its own difficulties. But we’re all professionals and that’s why you do all the work. My day and my off days are not fun. I sleep late because now I’m on a late schedule. I have to see my physio person.
“Coming back at this age, your fear is that you can’t do it anymore, and you’re going to be a compromised version of yourself. And I don’t want that.”
Lee goes on to reveal that that was one of the main reasons why Neil Peart retired – specifically, because “he refused to show anything but his very best in public”.
He continues, “And that’s why, according to my daughter, I didn’t smile for a year and a half before appearing onstage. My daughter came up to me and she was so happy. She said, ‘You look so happy up there. I haven’t seen you smile like that in a year and a half.’ I’m like, ‘Really? Am I really a grump?’”
As for the most challenging song on their setlist, the duo is quick to point out that most of their worries centred on A Farewell to Kings, which they included for the first time since 1979.
It’s the first track from their fifth studio album, which bears the same name. “It’s a weird song,” describes Lee. “It sounds like a walk in the park with a minstrel, but it’s not.”
The inclusion of what the two deem to be the “hardest song” of them all points to their determination, even at their age, to “be better than we’ve ever been not just be as good as we were,” as Lifeson insists, “and challenge ourselves with songs that we haven’t played in a long time.
“All of them were challenging after 11 years, anyways. But to bring back A Farewell to Kings, that took a lot of work.”
In related news, Alex Lifeson separately discussed the struggles he faced leading up to the Rush reunion.
