Primus' postponed A Tribute to Kings Rush tribute tour finally kicked off at the Ford Idaho Center in Boise, ID last night. The band paid tribute to their musical heroes Rush by covering the A Farewell to Kings album in full as seen in the fan-shot videos below(part 1, part 2). They then performed a set of Primus classics before calling it a night. The band had originally planned the tour for last year, but were forced to postpone it to the summer of 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. Primus frontman Les Claypool was recently interviewed for relix.com in the lead-up to the tour and had the following to say:
... I go to this new rehearsal space, and we're playing hour after hour after hour to get this shit right. And it's been very good for us-it is bringing us back together after all this time and challenging us. We have a common interest, which is Rush. That's what brought us together in the first place. We always have this kind of collective prog-element to what we do. And that all came from the first time that the three of us played together-one of the things that we were able to just jam on was Rush tunes. ... So it's a full circle thing. It's an honor. It's a wonderful thing to be able to go out and do this and hopefully do it well. ... [Surviving Rush members] Alex [Lifeson] and Geddy [Lee] have been super supportive. Alex loaned Ler one of his guitars. It's been very cool. It's been a good way for us to kind of reconnect with those guys, too. I keep in touch with Geddy fairly regularly, but we have been even more in touch with those guys recently, especially with Alex. ...
Claypool re-posted a 4-year-old photo of himself and Geddy to Instagram earlier this week with the caption, learning from the master (re-posted image here), which many music sites misinterpreted as meaning that Les had been practicing for the tour with Geddy himself. The photo was actually from a visit Ged had paid to Les back in 2017 as seen in this post.
For all the details on Primus' Tribute to Kings tour and to purchase tickets, visit primusville.com.
