Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson perform Closer to the Heart with Primus and Matt Stone on drums at South Park 25th anniversary show

Thu, Aug 11, 2022@8:32AM | comments

UPDATE - 9/2@4:51PM: The full, televised show is now available on YouTube (thanks RushFanForever):

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UPDATE - 8/17@11:35AM: Here's the official video from the Comedy Central special of Ged/Al's performance from the show (thanks RushFanForever). I've updated all the links in this post to now use the official video.

UPDATE - 8/13@4:32PM: FYI: The South Park 25th anniversary concert will be airing on TV this evening on Comedy Centralat 10PM EST, at 11PM EST on MUCH in Canada, and it will also be available to stream starting tomorrow on Paramount+.

UPDATE - 8/12@8:56AM: This Variety article gives a detailed rundown of the event, and also mentions that Comedy Central will be airing an edited version of the show tomorrow evening.

UPDATE - 8/12@8:48AM: Here's another photo of the gang, including Danny Carey of Tool, that Les posted to his Claypool Cellars IG:

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UPDATE - 8/11@7:29PM: Alex posted a picture from rehearsals to his Instagram:

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The second of two back-to-back South Park 25th anniversary shows took place last night at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, and Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson made a surprise visit to sit in on a performance of Closer to the Heart with Primus and South Park co-creator Matt Stone on drums. The performance was preceded with an animated video backdrop of Alex and Geddy as South Park characters. Animated Alex receives a "telegram" from Terrance and Phillip (Canadian South Park characters) about (aboot) the 25th anniversary show, and animated Ged says, "What could we do for our pals Matt and Trey? Send them some Rush beer? Or even worse, we could show up and jam with them, eh? Geddy and Alex then come out and are introduced by Primus frontman Les Claypool. You can watch the entire performance below or on YouTube. Primus' South Park 25th anniversary show featured Primus, Ween and South Park co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Primus played a few of their own hits before performing the South Park intro with Parker and Stone, and then came the Closer to the Heart performance. They then closed things out with Tommy the Cat featuring Matt Stone as "Butters the Cat", and America (Fuck Yeah) with Ween. Alex and Geddy's performance of Closer to the Heart was the first time the pair had played Rush music on stage together in public since the final show of the R40 Live tour over 7 years ago (NOTE: they did both perform during the all-star Rockin' in the Free World jam at YES' 2017 Rock Hall induction). An animated version of Rush appeared on an episode of South Park titled Royal Pudding back on May 11, 2011. Parker and Stone also created a video intro for Tom Sawyer titled Lil' Rush that Rush used to introduce Tom Sawyer on the Snakes & Arrows tour.

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