Neil Peart News, Weather, and Sports Update - August 2013 - "It’s Not Over When It’s Over"

Neil Peart has just posted a new update to his "News, Weather, and Sports" website blog, the final one to coincide with the end of the Clockwork Angels tour earlier this month. The August entry is titled "It’s Not Over When It’s Over".

The entry begins at the end - specifically the final show in Kansas City back on August 4th:

But what a truly triumphant tour it was!

The emotional resonance of the final show, in Kansas City, inside us and around us, could only compare to the first show of our Vapor Trails tour, in Hartford, Connecticut, on June 28, 2002. That “new beginning” came after five intensely difficult years since our last performance on July 4, 1997. When that Hartford show was over, I said to our manager, Ray, “It would have been a shame if that had never happened again.” He smiled and nodded, and we raised our glasses of champagne.

Eleven years later, that August night in Kansas City was the ultimate tour-ending show in all our thirty-nine years of “roadwork.” It affected us in ways we could never have expected, and most of that emotion was centered on the Clockwork Angels String Ensemble. Usually the Guys at Work, band and crew, finish a tour believing it’s just a break—that it will all start up again at some point, and we’ll all see each other again. All seven of the “stringers” knew that this time it truly was, like the lovely title of a Hemingway story, “The End of Something.”

Mario, Adele, Jacob, Audrey, Gerry, Jonny, and Entcho had traveled together, played together, and lived together for the better part of a year. In their own words, they had become “a family”—sharing buses, dressing rooms, and stages for all of those shows, and the days off between them.

So the final show, in Kansas City, was both triumphant and bittersweet.

As has been the case with many of Neil's entries during the tour, he then goes on to highlight some of the locations he visited via his motorcycle travels. Over the course of the tour, Neil logged an amazing 28,000 miles on his bike!

You can read Neil's entire entry via 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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