Rush’s Geddy Lee stated the primary Taylor Hawkins tribute present, which happened in England in September 2022, was presumably the best gig of his life.
The singer and bassist admitted he felt much less optimistic in regards to the U.S. memorial live performance for the late Foo Fighters drummer, which happened three weeks later.
In his lately printed memoir My Effin’ Life, Lee stated the pair of concert events supplied him and bandmate Alex Lifeson the possibility “transfer on from grief to remembrance” as they continued to take care of the demise of Rush drummer Neil Peart in 2020.
“These two exhibits have been actually uncommon for very completely different causes,” Lee informed Traditional Rock in a current interview. “The present in London was maybe essentially 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 optimistic.
He famous that “for 5 or 6 days earlier than the present we have been all holed up at a resort 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 “some of the 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 components,” Lee defined. “Nevertheless it 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 cause for feeling worse in regards to the second present, which happened on the Discussion board in Inglewood, California, on Sept. 27. “Issues have been a bit completely 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 rather more withdrawn backstage at that present, eager about issues. However I walked away from it feeling that not less than we had achieved justice to Taylor, and, in a small means, justice to Neil.”
Requested about the opportunity of staging an analogous sort 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 discuss it. If we will get our shit collectively, we’d be capable to pull one thing off.”
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