Paul McCartney encouraged Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson to “get back out there” on tour
After sitting in the audience for a Rush show, Paul McCartney joined the band for drinks and encouraged Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson to return to touring.
After Neil Peart passed away in 2020, the band declared that Rush was over. Since then, the group played a show in tribute to Taylor Hawkins in London, where Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl would introduce them to The Beatles songwriter.
Lee recalled the experience during a conversation with Rolling Stone, sharing: “Dave [Grohl] was so sweet. He comes up to us at rehearsal, and he goes, ‘Paul McCartney’s up next to rehearse, and he’s outside, and he said to me ‘Dave, I’ve never met anyone from Rush before’. And I said, ‘I’ve never met him! Bring him in, please.’ And he came in. He’s just a very lovely man. A very positive person.”
Though Lee suggested that McCartney had never heard their music before, he sat in on the show. “I think he was really curious because people probably had mentioned us to him,” he explained.
Following the performance, the Rush vocalist recalls him being “so warm and embracing and positive”. McCartney joined them for drinks, and they got “plastered” together, with the former Beatle encouraging them to return to touring.
“And he was very emphatic,” Lee recalled, “Talking about, ‘You know what Ringo always says: ‘It’s what we do.’ And I said, ‘Talk to Al, because he’s the stubborn one.’ And so he was lecturing Al about how great it is to tour. ‘You have to do it, man. You have to get back out there, man.’ And Alex said something like, ‘I’ll do it, if you’ll be our manager.'”
“It was really fun, really funny, but he had a point. That’s the way he looks at life. He’s ageless because he really, truly believes he was born to do this. That’s what you do. And you just do it. You don’t question it. And I think we all sometimes forget that,” Lee concluded.
Perhaps there is a Rush reunion still on the cards.
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