Neil Peart News, Weather, and Sports Update - June 2015 - Backstage Byways

Though Neil Peart is in the middle of Rush's 40th Anniversary Tour, that hasn't stopped the band's percussionist and chief lyricist from writing another entry for the News, Weather, and Sports section of his website.

In this entry, titled Backstage Byways, most of the discussion centers around the band's first leg of their tour, the extensive preparations needed to get the show on the road, and Neil's cycle travels between each date:

Sometimes a motorcycling destination is worth a longer bus ride, and a bouncier sleep. Other times circumstances force it. On the day of the Tulsa show, while checking over my motorcycle, I discovered a bind in the back wheel, like the brake caliper dragging on the disc. My mechanical abilities are pretty much limited to oil changes (though I’m very good at those!), so it would need to be taken to a BMW dealer. Fortunately there was one in Omaha, near the next show in Lincoln, and Michael called ahead to let them know we’d be bringing it in. I transferred my tools and such to the spare bike (the older GS that usually lives at my home in Quebec), and drew up a plan that would get Dave close enough to Omaha, while Michael and I could head west across Nebraska.

There is also a very cute entry regarding Neil's 5-year-old daughter Olivia who took in her very first Rush concert in New Orleans:

It was also Olivia’s first Rush concert, and she loved it. I had thought she might last a song or two, but she danced and air-drummed right to the end. Manager Ray arranged a “box” for them, high up over everything, and Olivia couldn’t get over all the people.

“There must be two-thousand-and-eighteen people,” she said.

Ray laughed and told her, “Actually there are about eleven thousand!”

Olivia looked puzzled, “Are they all here to see my dad and Uncle Alex and Uncle Geddy?”

When Ray assured her they were, she said, “That’s too silly.”

Then she wondered, “Do they know he’s my dad?”

Ray laughed and said, “They probably do.”

During intermission she came backstage and ran up to me, arms raised for me to pick her up. Still wearing her big red “ear defenders,” she was so excited that she bounced in my arms.

“Daddy! It was great! I only didn’t like the shipwreck” (rearscreen video in “The Wreckers,” to her an echo of the dark beginning of Frozen, a movie she finds rightly unbearable) “and the explosion!” (Pyro-man Boom-Boom’s fireworks in “Far Cry.”)

It looks like Rush have a new fan. You can read the entire entry at this LINK (SPOILERS WITHIN).

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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