Geddy Lee from Rush Taylor Hawkins tribute show , which took place in England in September 2022, was possibly the biggest show of his life.
The singer and bassist admitted that he felt less optimistic about the memorial concert for the Foo Fighters in the US, which took place three weeks after his death.
In his recently published memoir, My Effin' Life , Lee said the shows offered him and bandmate Alex Lifeson the chance to "move from grief to remembrance" as they continued to cope with the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart in 2020.
Amazing and positive atmosphere
“Those two shows were really unusual for very different reasons,” Lee told Classic Rock in a recent interview. “The London show was perhaps the most joyful celebration of loss I could imagine. I’ve never seen so many musicians in one place and the atmosphere backstage was profoundly positive.”
He noted that “for five or six days before the show, we were all holed up in a hotel with all the other musicians and all their friends and family. Every night you were at the bar with these people, and there was no trash talk, no cynicism, no superiority. You could feel Taylor’s spirit and the love coming from the Foo Fighters family. That was really moving.”
Lee described Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl as "one of the most remarkable human beings I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with," but revealed he had reservations about playing Rush songs for the first time since their last show in 2015.
“Here we were, Alex and I, not having played together for years, feeling very nervous about who would play the drums,” Lee explained. “But everything worked out and, in a way, it was perhaps the best show of my life. The whole atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever experienced.”
The second show didn't have the same vibe for Geddy Lee
Geddy Lee had reason to feel worse about the second show, which took place at the Forum in Inglewood, California, on September 27th. "Things were a little different because of what that venue symbolizes to me," he said.
“Being back at the Forum, where my band last played, felt like returning to the scene of the crime. So I tried to be as happy as I was in London, but I couldn’t find the same space. I was much more withdrawn backstage at that show, thinking things through. But I left feeling that at least we had done justice to Taylor and, in a way, justice to Neil.”
Asked about the possibility of staging a similar show to honor Peart, Lee said: “We were planning to do a memorial in Toronto, but then the pandemic hit and, when we came out of it, a few years had passed. We felt like we were robbed of the moment. But you never know. We still talk about it. If we can pull ourselves together, maybe we can do something” (via Loudwire ).
READ ALSO: Geddy Lee received “inappropriate” messages from drummers after Neil Peart’s death
