Friday, July 15, 2011

New Neil Peart news update at NeilPeart.net

[NEWS, WEATHER, and SPORTS: July, 2011 - The Frying Pan and the Freezer]

Neil Peart has updated the News page on his website with a story titled The Frying Pan and the Freezer. In this latest installment Neil discusses his motorcycle travels throughout the Southern US, Southwestern US, California and the Pacific Northwest on the last leg of the 2011 Time Machine Tour including a bunch of spectacular photographs. He also spends a great deal of time describing the band's final show of the tour at The Gorge outside Seattle, Washington - focusing in particular on how thankful he is of his wonderful road crew and of course all of us faithful Rush fans, who make it much easier for him to leave his little 2-year-old daughter to go to work:

... Thousands of people stand in front of the three of us when we're onstage-but a lot of important people stand behind us, too, a network that's almost immeasurable. And ... let's not forget the ones who stand behind us at home.

That can be the loneliest and least-appreciated place of all-at least by outsiders. After I was home for a day off after the Phoenix show, then had to leave the next afternoon for a show in San Diego, little Olivia, almost two now, woke up from her nap and went running down the hall toward my office, saying, "Go see Daddy!" When she was told, "Daddy's gone to work again," she burst into tears. Hearing about that made me feel very bad. As I've written before, I can stand missing her, but I can't stand her missing me.

However, on the "happy side" of that equation, an audience of more than 13,000 people attended the final show of our Time Machine Tour, on July 2, 2011. Most of them had traveled a considerable distance-The Gorge is a long way from anywhere (the nearest town, humorously, is George, Washington). But we too had a traveled a long way to get to that stage. And despite how many shows we had played, our weariness, and our sheer age, we managed to pull off a magic show that night. ...

... At the end of the show, as we bowed and waved and Geddy thanked the audience for being so great, at that show and so many others, I heard him drop the f-bomb-for the first time in history. After saying, "It has been great," he repeated that phrase and added that emphatic modifier. It was definitely a case of "when no other word would do"-to express how successful the tour had been, how much it meant to us, and how much we appreciated the people who had made it great.

In that moment, the three of us knew that at last we would be stepping away from the "frying pan" of live performance (the crucible) for a while, and would have some time off to chill: "the freezer."

And what a great way to mark that transition.

Sometimes things are so perfectly right that you can't help but get carried away in
the moment...

You can read the entire post at this link.