Rush’s Geddy Lee admitted that he held “resentment” toward Neil Peart for his decision to step back from the group in 2015, leading to their retirement.
Recently touring to promote his memoir ”My Effin’ Life”, Geddy Lee recalled:
“By the time that tour got towards the end, our relationship was strained. With every successive gig, he was closer to the end, (Neil) was getting happier, and Alex (Lifeson) and I were getting, uh, less happy”.
“The last gig was odd. We played our guts out, we played our hearts out in L.A. at that show. I asked (Peart), I said, ‘Well, would you come out and take a bow? Maybe it’ll be our last gig.’ He said, ‘No, I don’t do that.
”No, I don’t cross that invisible line.’ We said, ‘Okay.’ But, he did anyway, because he couldn’t resist it. He snuck out. He gave us a hug, and we took a bow together.”
Geddy Lee added:
“After that show, it was really weird, because we didn’t talk about it. He went to sort of his dressing room, which was ebullient and celebratory, and we went to see all our chums, and we pretended we were ebullient and celebratory. But we went home in a very sad frame of mind.
“I had resentment, I’ll be honest. I was resentful because I loved that tour and I wanted to bring it around the world, and (Peart) only had agreed to so many gigs and he wouldn’t bend.”