Rush’s Geddy Lee stated the primary Taylor Hawkins tribute present, which passed off in England in September 2022, was presumably the best gig of his life.
The singer and bassist admitted he felt much less constructive concerning the U.S. memorial live performance for the late Foo Fighters drummer, which passed off three weeks later.
In his not too long ago printed memoir My Effin’ Life, Lee stated the pair of concert events provided him and bandmate Alex Lifeson the possibility “transfer on from grief to remembrance” as they continued to cope with the loss of life of Rush drummer Neil Peart in 2020.
“These two exhibits have been actually uncommon for very totally different causes,” Lee instructed Traditional Rock in a current interview. “The present in London was maybe probably the most joyous celebration of loss that I may ever think about. I’ve by no means seen so many musicians in a single place, and the ambiance backstage was profoundly constructive.
He famous that “for 5 or 6 days earlier than the present we have been all holed up at a lodge with each different musician and all their mates and households. Each evening you’d be within the bar with these of us, and there was no backbiting, no cynicism, no one-upmanship. You can really feel the spirit of Taylor and the love coming from the Foo Fighters household. That was actually touching.”
Lee described Foos chief Dave Grohl as “one of the vital exceptional human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to fulfill and work with,” however revealed he skilled doubts over performing Rush songs for the primary time since their closing present in 2015.
“Right here we have been, Alex and I, having not performed collectively in years, feeling fairly nervous about who’s going to play the drum elements,” Lee defined. “But it surely all got here collectively, and in some methods, it was perhaps the best gig of my life. The entire ambiance was like nothing I’d ever skilled.”
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However he had a purpose for feeling worse concerning the second present, which passed off on the Discussion board in Inglewood, California, on Sept. 27. “Issues have been a little bit totally different due to what that venue symbolizes to me,” he stated.
“Being again on the Discussion board, the place my band had performed for the final time, it felt like I used to be returning to the scene of the crime. So I attempted to be as joyous as I used to be in London, however I couldn’t discover that very same headspace. I used to be far more withdrawn backstage at that present, excited about issues. However I walked away from it feeling that no less than we had achieved justice to Taylor, and, in a small manner, justice to Neil.”
Requested about the opportunity of staging an analogous type of present to commemorate Peart, Lee stated, “We have been planning on doing a memorial in Toronto, however then the pandemic hit, and by the point we’d come out of it, a few years had handed.
“We really feel like we have been robbed of the second. However you by no means know. We nonetheless speak about it. If we will get our shit collectively, we’d be capable to pull one thing off.”
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