Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson made an increasingly rare appearance onstage together Thursday as the Rush duo covered ’s “The Way I Feel” at a Toronto tribute concert for the late Canadian singer-songwriter.
Lee and Lifeson, who were billed as “L+L” on the lineup, performed alongside the Canadian country act Blue Rodeo at the gig at Massey Hall, the same Toronto venue where Rush recorded their All the World’s a Stage live album in 1976.
“On Thursday evening at Massey Hall in Toronto, both Alex and myself had the profound pleasure of paying tribute to a true Canadian musical legend, Gordon Lightfoot,” Lee wrote on social media after the performance. “A huge thank you to the gracious members of Blue Rodeo for sharing their stage and prodigious talents with us both- a tremendous evening full of compelling performances and warm remembrances. An honour to be there.”
Speaking to Variety, the bassist added, “It was important for us to pay tribute to Gordon. 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.”
Lee and Lifeson have only reunited onstage a handful of times since the death of Rush drummer Neil Peart in 2020, first to play the band’s “Closer to the Heart” at a South Park 25th anniversary show in 2022, and followed soon after by a three-song set — with drummers like Dave Grohl, Chad Smith and Tool’s Danny Carey — at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in London and Los Angeles.
While Lifeson also on hand for one of the events revolving around Lee’s memoir My Effin’ Life back in December 2023, the duo hadn’t performed together since those 2022 gigs, though as Lifeson recently told Rolling Stone, Lee has continually trying to persuade him to play Rush together live.
“We talk about it, but at the same time, [Lee’s] my best friend and he loves me and he cares for me. He knows that I do have issues both physical and emotional with this whole idea,” Lifeson told Rolling Stone. “And he respects that we have so much respect and love for each other. I would do something like that, that he wanted to do, because I love him and I want to make him happy. But he knows that I wouldn’t be happy. It’s the bond that we have.”
Lee told Rolling Stone in a November 2023 interview, “I think Al and I owe it to each other to have a serious sit-down and play together and see what happens, and maybe all this hypothetical crap that we talked about…. Maybe that’ll disappear if we get really excited or maybe it won’t, but I’m not banking on it, and Rush fans certainly should not bank on it. There’s always hope.”