Neil Peart News, Weather, and Sports Update - May 2013 - "The Sweet Science"

The latest update from Neil Peart and his "News, Weather, and Sports" website blog is now online. This May 2013 entry is titled The Sweet Science and, as one may have expected, a significant portion of the entry focuses on Rush's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Neil first reflects back on the "surreal" events surrounding the ceremony:

Following my own pre-tour preparations at the local Y, and at Drum Channel’s studio (two-and-a-half weeks of playing along with the recorded versions of the show, tuning up my technique and stamina), I joined the Guys at Work (Alex, Geddy, and our crew) at a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley.
That was when things started to become surreal.

On our last day in the warehouse, we were joined by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters, and our mutual coproducer Nick “Booujzhe” Raskulinecz. They wanted to rehearse their spoof of us from . . . thirty-six years ago.

By now, the televised show in all its glory (I have faith it will retain the essence of what it was like to experience the real-time event — truly larger than life) will be widely shared. The performances, the speeches, the humor, and the overwhelming gathering of the Great and the Good are part of some kind of history now. However, the inner experience of living all that was something else again. Not larger than life, but exactly life-size.

The only way to portray even the ghost of what that few days felt like from the inside might be to jump ahead to when it was over — to a “reflective” moment.

Neil also reveals some additional information surrounding the band's acceptance speeches. As it turns out, the now infamous Alex Lifeson poetic 'Blah Blah Blah' speech was a surprise to Geddy and Neil as well:

For our Hall of Fame speeches, the three of us chose “themes” that each of us would focus on — families for me, fans for Geddy, and for Alex, well . . . blah-blah-blah. (What a moment that was, when he hadn’t warned us what he was going to do. Geddy and I couldn’t see him “acting,” and thought he was going all Flavor Flav [no doubt that poor soul’s rambling, embarrassing, endless blather, under Chuck D’s stern, arms-folded scowl, will be trimmed for the broadcast]. Geddy muttered to me, “How can we make him stop?”, and I raised my heavy “trophy” behind Alex’s head as if to brain him. The two of us have long declared Our Lerxst to be “The Funniest Man Alive,” and of course his performance was a huge comedic success. But he should have warned us.)

You can read the entire entry at this LINK.

And to check out every News, Weather, and Sports entry Neil has made dating back to 2005, they are all available at the News, Weather, and Sports Archives.

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