Forthcoming Brazilian concert dvd may mark the end of the road for the veteran band
CANADIAN HARD ROCKERS Rush, who recently issued a new collection called 'The Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits: 1974-1981', are considering calling it a day. Last year's tour to promote their current album 'Vapor Trails' was North America's 16th most successful trek of 2002, grossing $27 million from 63 shows. However, speaking after being inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, guitarist Alex Lifeson said: "At this stage in our lives it meant so much for us to get back out on the road. If it were to end now I would feel that there was some kind of dosure. So the door goes two ways at this point.
"Either we dive into the next project in a year and repeat the whole thing, or we just find that we've had our fill and move on." Rush failed to set foot in Europe during their tour, with Lifeson telling Classic Rock "We didn't get any offers from British promoters for a full tour - it doesn't make an sense for us to come for just four or five dates." Good news now comes in the shape of a live DVD, shot last November in Rio De Janeiro during Rush's first ever tour of Brazil.
"We had a forty-camera set-up," Lifeson says. "We shot a lot of stuff that whole week, just casual things - travelling around, at the hotel, in the dressing room." It's also possible that the final wrap could include footage shot in Toronto as the band toured their 'Test For Echo' album. The group had put the idea on the back bumer after drummer Neil Peart's daughter died in a car accident and his wife died of cancer.
Reviews of the trio's last tour were consistently good.
"I think we played the best we've ever played," says Lifeson. "There was a renewed energy in the way we approached our live performances."