Its taken me a long time to gather my thought on Neil Peart. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s every guitar player wanted to play like Eddie Van Halen and every drummer wanted to play like Neil. We couldn’t !! They are both world-class musicians and all of us were just learning to play.
I thinks it’s the liner notes on Permanent Waves the band thanks Malibu Grand Prix. Which was an arcade that also had go-cart racing. My best friend worked there we hangout there all the time.So the day Rush played in Fresno, Ca we ditched school and hung out at MGP all day.Knowing in our heart of hearts that Neil,Alex and Geddy were going to show up. It didn’t happen !!
That night i saw Rush play for the first time and they were AMAZING !!
Years later i moved to Los Angeles to further my music career. I was fortunate enough to study with Fred Gruber for six years. (That an entirely different story) Fred taught everyone.Steve Smith (Journey) Max Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen) and of course Neil. I never met Neil in person. However one night Neil called Fred when i was taking my lesson.I got to speak with him briefly and told him about the Malibu Grand Prix story. In true Neil fashion he didn’t say anything,he just laughed.
R.I.P. Professor