![]() Peart was Rush’s drummer from July 1974, when they were only slightly more than unknown. ![]() He only ever wanted to be the best version of a musician he could be – nothing less. He didn’t just walk away from the band he walked away from drumming. Peart had no intention of playing anything less than his best, so he simply stopped. He had had psoriatic arthritis and chronic tendonitis for some time, which he had to overcome every night to perform the bands demanding and intricate repertoire. When Rush retired from the rigors of live performance in 2015, one of the main reasons was Peart’s failing health. At meet-and-greets at Rush concerts, Peart was conspicuous by his absence, preferring to practice drum rudiments or read one of an endless library of books he always traveled with. He wasn’t rude he just didn’t want to play the game. Peart was a man who guarded his privacy intensely, but often this desire to keep his public and private lives entirely separate was mistaken as rudeness. ![]() What was the point?Īnd now, he’s gone, a victim of the brain cancer that only a handful of people knew he had. I never once attempted to play a Neil Peart lick. A few years later, I found myself playing drums in a rock band. He could rock like John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), swing like Gene Krupa, and play compound rhythms that only a mathematician could follow – all while looking like one of the Three Musketeers. He pushed that band forward with a mixture of grace, violence, restraint, and abandon, underpinned with endless musicality. Possibly five.Īt the back of the stage, behind a massive drumkit that impressed the hell out of this 15-year-old fanboy, was Neil Peart. Just three people were performing, but each one seemed to be doing three things at once, apart from the bassist who was doing four. The second thing that struck me was how much music was coming off the stage. The show was sold-out, and everyone who attended was a fully paid up, card-carrying, diehard fan. The first thing that struck me was how many people had come to see this band that I had only just heard about. I first saw Rush at the Odeon in Birmingham, England, on.
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