Rush Attends Primus’ ‘Farewell to Kings’ Show: ‘They Made Us Proud’

Two special guests were on hand for Primus’ performance in Toronto on Friday night: Geddy Lee of Rush and Alex Lifeson.
Primus played the entire 1977 Rush album A farewell to kings at the show, and yesterday Lee shared a photo on his instagram featuring himself, Lifeson, and members of Primus behind the scenes describing the event. “Friday evening, we had the joy of meeting our great friends from [Primus] … Les, Ler, Herb and their gang,” Lee wrote.
“We sat to the side of the stage as they worked impeccably on a cool selection of classics [Primus] tunes that brought back fond memories of our tour together in the early 90s, and then we were treated to the weird and wonderful experience of seeing them play our music: A farewell to kings in its entirety. Totally nailed! They made us proud and we thank them deeply for the tribute and 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, or whatever. I come from a long line of auto mechanics,” Claypool told the tennessian. “I never really had a lot of record collection. There’s always this cool kid in the neighborhood who had a cool stereo, a pool table, a pool. That’s where we always hung out. He had an older brother who had all these We would look at the covers and we would choose a record next to the cover. One day, I look at this one and I see a puppet in the ruins. I think to myself, “What the hell is that? is that it?” I play it and it’s ‘farewell to kings.’ This is the first time I’ve heard Rush.”
Touring together in 1992 was a defining moment for Claypool and his bandmates, Claypool recalled. “We were pretty thrilled,” he said, “partly because of the musical geek-out factor, but mostly because the three guys we’d admired so much from afar turned out to be really great, grounded humans. -down to earth, and like us, a tad eccentric.”
Primus played A farewell to kings in full since April, even if the idea was not serious at first. “It all started because we were always joking, ‘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 could wrap up the Cygnus saga. But I do not know. I can’t commit to that.”
The band is planned to tour North America until August. They will then go abroad to perform in Europe and the United Kingdom
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