"It's very hard to answer that question for a lot of reasons," Lee responded when asked the tour would be a farewell trek. "First of all, you know, the three guys in this band have very different opinions on this point in our lives. Everybody's in a very different space right now.

"We've done a lot of touring for the last 10 years, a lot of writing, a lot of working. (Drummer) Neil (Peart), for example, has a young child at home and he's said publicly, numerous times, that it's very hard for him to leave his daughter. She needs him.

"So, it's clear that we are at a point in our career that we have to slow down - and slow down dramatically. So, I'm not a guy who's in love with the farewell tour idea, but it's clear that this is going to be the last big tour that we're going to do for a while, anyway. I can say that."

He also talked about what he sees in the future for Rush. "In terms of 'are we still a band?,' yeah, of course we're still a band. Do we talk about writing? Yes, we talk about writing. Will we do gigs in the future? I don't see why not. But, when you are talking about a tour that's 35 shows, 40 shows, 50 shows at our age at this point in our lives, I don't know how many of those are still left in us."