Rush offer more thoughts on their uncertain future

When the rockers announced last summer’s R40 tour in January 2015 they cast doubt on their future thanks to an ominous sentence in the press release.

It read: “These not-to-be-missed concerts will highlight four decades of the band’s music. (This) will most likely be their last major tour of this magnitude."

Clarifying the situation, Alex Lifeson has said that despite the success of the North American summer tour, Neil Peart won’t entertain the idea of hitting the road again.

“We had such a great time on the tour," Lifeson told Rolling Stone. "And it was really nice to go through all the material in reverse chronology, and I think our fans really enjoyed it. I think that no matter how long it would have been, it would have been too short."

“Neil was prepared to commit to 30 dates and he told us that right from the very beginning. He didn't even want to do the tour, to be honest with you. It's been increasingly difficult for him, but he committed to the tour and we got through it. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of touring."

On top of Peart missing his young daughter, Lifeson said the tour took its physical toll on the drummer: "His shoulders were hurting, his arms were hurting, his elbows, his feet, everything."

"He didn't want to play anything less than 100 percent. He was finding it increasingly difficult to hit that mark on this last tour. So, all those things combined, I get it. I'm disappointed and I think Geddy (Lee) is very disappointed and we'd love to continue this tour a little bit longer, but we're off now."

While touring is on hold, Lifeson refused to rule out one-off shows and says that he and Lee often hit the studio together.

"I know (Geddy is) open to sitting down and doing some writing," he explained. “I’ve been writing since the summer anyway because that's just what I like to do."

“We only live five minutes from each other. And I've gone over and had a coffee in the past, and we end up going downstairs into his room and start making some noise."

“You never know. Maybe next fall or something like that, we'll plan something. We took a year off before the last tour and we didn't discuss anything about the band or work, and everybody had a great time, and we came back from that."

Here's hoping (for Darren's sake), that this isn't the last of Rush live.