Rush‘s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson made a surprise appearance May 23 in Toronto, reuniting for a concert paying tribute to the late Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
Lightfoot, known for songs like “If You Could Read My Mind” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” died in May 2023 at age 84. Variety reports that at the event at the famed Massey Hall, Lee and Lifeson performed Lightfoot’s song “The Way I Feel,” backed by the Canadian band Blue Rodeo.
The two also joined in on the finale: a group performance of the song “Summerside of Life,” which included Canadian musicians like The Guess Who‘s Burton Cummings and Tom Cochrane, as well as Lightfoot’s daughter Meredith Moon.
“It was important for us to pay tribute to Gordon,” Lee told Variety. “Not being folk or pop artists, Alex and I were looking for one of Gordon’s songs that might better suit our style of play and we found that in ‘The Way I Feel.’ Its structure was loose and more open to interpretation than many of his more popular tunes.”
Moon seemed to approve: Lee said that she told them afterward, “Leave it to Rush to make ‘The Way I Feel’ sound prog.”
“So I think we succeeded,” Lee noted.
Lee and Lifeson were most recently together onstage in December at Massey Hall for Lee’s book tour in support of his memoir, My Effin’ Life. Since Rush retired from the road in 2015, the two had performed together in public just four times: at Rush’s 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, at the 2022 Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts and at the 2022 South Park 25th anniversary concert in Colorado. Rush drummer Neil Peart died in 2020.
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