Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson attended PRIMUS‘s latest show on Friday (May 13) at Massey Hall in Toronto to watch the trio perform RUSH‘s 1977 album “A Farewell To Kings” in its entirety.
The current PRIMUS tour, titled “A Tribute To Kings“, sees the band perform the classic RUSH album from front to back at every stop on the trek. Heavy metal stoner rock act THE SWORD are also on the run of dates in the support role.
On Sunday (May 15), Geddy Lee posted a backstage photo to Instagram which included the message: “On Friday night we had the joyful experience of reuniting with our grand pals from PRIMUS… Les, Ler, Herb and their gang… We sat side stage as they immaculately worked through a cool selection of classic PRIMUS tunes which brought back fond memories of our touring together back in the early 90’s and then we were treated to the weird and wonderful experience of watching them perform our music: A Farewell to Kings in it’s entirety. Totally nailed it! They did us proud and we thank them deeply for the tribute and the lasting friendship.”
PRIMUS bassist/vocalist Les Claypool recently spoke with the Nashville Tennessean about why thew band wanted to perform “A Farewell To Kings” on their latest tour: “We always joked that we were going to play ‘Hemispheres‘ in its entirety. And then it was, like, ‘Well, maybe we should do something like that.’ ‘2112‘ seemed a little too obvious. ‘Moving Pictures‘ seemed a little too obvious. So, ‘A Farewell To Kings‘ seemed like the right choice.”
Discussing how PRIMUS approach the shows, Claypool said: “I was one of those guys as a high schooler, sitting in the audience … knowing every single note. RUSH fans are very scrutinizing. They’ll tell you, we were one of the only bands accepted by the RUSH crowd back in the day when we were touring with them. That being said, it’s very precious to a lot of people. We’re taking it very seriously. I’ll tell you, we’ve never rehearsed as a band this much in our lives as we did for this RUSH thing. We’re doing it as close as we possibly can to the way they would do it.”
Les also touched on PRIMUS‘s relationship with RUSH fans, saying: “There’s usually like four or five people scattered towards the front [who] are so into it. They’re singing all the words and some of them get teared up. It’s pretty amazing. I know for me, as a teenager, RUSH was such a big part of me starting out as a musician. I see these people [who] all these years have been so devoted to that band. To have people have that experience is very endearing.”
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