Neil Ellwood Peart (pronounced “Peert”) was the drummer and primary lyricist for the progressive rock band Rush. He was known for his complicated, extremely technical drumming containing odd time signatures and complex arrangements. Peart joined the band in the summer of 1974 following previous drummer John Rutsey’s departure and has been a member ever since. He has received many awards for his performances with Rush and was widely regarded for his technical proficiency and stamina. In terms of influence, he was considered one of the most popular and important drummers in history.
Some sources claim that Peart was born Nikola Petrovic but that has never been confirmed and should not be taken as a fact.
Born: 12th September 1952
Died: 7th January 2020
Hands perform, and hands respond. Hands gesture, and hands respond. A show of ears and eyes, a show of hearts and minds. A Show of Hands.
It is time. Through the sudden darkness we run to the stage, the intro tape drowned in a roaring wave of welcome. Our tension is fed by the audience’s anticipation for this long overdue return to Britain, and by the presence of another, silent audience – the microphone ears and camera eyes which will focus on our performance.
For a band with high standards, a perfect show is impossible, and an excellent show is rare. You hope that the norm i “good”.
To deliver a really exceptional, comfortable performance before a recording truck or film crew has been our unfulfilled dream of many years. Always it seemed that as soon as the machines started rolling, we forgot how to play and our equipment forgot how to work. Any tiny inaccuracy seemed magnified to staggering immensity by an internal vision of spinning tape-reels, malevolent machinery capturing that damned millisecond forever.
But for these two nights, the gods smile. The ears and eyes of technology open to capture the responses of the audience and the players to the music, to the atmosphere, to each other. The panorama of faces alone mirrors a novel’s worth of expression and emotion; intense, playful, concentrated, abandoned, pained, laughing, serious, and downright silly.
Shifting beams of colored light animate the stage and follow the player’s every move, while the audience is picked out in tinted pools, a sea of shining faces.
Cartoon backdrops spring to life behind the band, then leap out to fill the screen. Lasers slash and stab at the darkness. A filament of shared tension and release connects the musicians, the audience, the music.
Cartoon backdrops spring to life behind the band, then leap out to fill the screen. Lasers slash and stab at the darkness. A filament of shared tension and release connects the musicians, the audience, the music.
And the film becomes not just a concert, but a symbol – for the band a scrapbook, an autobiography, an era frozen in glacial clarity. For the audience, it can be an enduring souvenir, and if it can’t quite capture what it was like to be there, it is a way of seeing through many pairs of eyes, of shifting one’s vantage-point around and above the players in a way no mortal could.
Hands perform, and hands respond. Hands gesture, and hands respond. A show of ears and eyes, a show of hearts and minds. A Show of Hands. (Neil Peart)
