Rush Attend Primus’ ‘Farewell to Kings’ Show: ‘They Did Us Proud’
Two special guests were in attendance for Primus's performance in Toronto Friday night: Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.
Primus played the entirety of Rush's 1977 album A Farewell to Kings at the show, and yesterday Lee shared a photo on his Instagram featuring himself, Lifeson and the members of Primus backstage describing the event. "On Friday night we had the joyful experience of reuniting with our grand pals from [Primus] … Les, Ler, Herb and their gang," Lee wrote.
"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 '90s and then we were treated to the weird and wonderful experience of watching them perform our music: A Farewell to Kings in its entirety. Totally nailed it! They did us proud and we thank them deeply for the tribute and the lasting friendship."
Primus frontman Les Claypool recently spoke about Rush's influence on him as a musician.
"When I was a kid — I'd say 12 years old, or whatever. I come from a long line of auto mechanics," Claypool told the Tennessean. "I never really had much of a record collection. There's always that one cool kid in the neighborhood that had a cool stereo, a pool table, a swimming pool. That's where we always hung out. He had an older brother who had all these records. We would look at the covers and pick a record by the cover. One day I look at this one and I see a marionette in the ruins. I'm like, 'What the hell is this?' I play it and it's 'Farewell to Kings.' That's the first time I heard Rush."
Touring together in 1992 was a bucket-list moment for Claypool and his band members, Claypool recalled. "We were pretty delighted," he said, "partially because of the musical geek-out factor but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric."
Primus have been performing A Farewell to Kings in full since April, even though the idea wasn't a serious one at first. "The whole thing started because we would always joke, 'Oh, let’s play Hemispheres in its entirety,'" Claypool told UCR in February. "If we were to do another one, I would assume that Hemispheres would be next, just so we can complete the Cygnus saga. But I don’t know. I can’t commit to that."
The band is scheduled to tour North America until August. They'll then head overseas to perform in Europe and the U.K.