To get to the beginning, you have to go back to the end. It’s August 1, 2015, and the Forum in Los Angeles is in disarray. It’s the final curtain call on Rush’s R40 tour, and for the first and last time in their four-decade career, at the end of the set Neil Peart has stepped off his drum riser and gone to the front of the stage to hug his two bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.
“It was a beautiful moment,” Geddy would say later. For his part, Alex had been waiting for the final moment – not Neil’s embrace, neither of them knew that was coming as his way of saying goodbye – literally watching from the Forum stage the minutes tick away on the giant clock on the back wall of the venue.
