Thank You, Neil.

Many tributes will be written about Neil Peart, who was, in my mind, the greatest rock drummer of all time. His obituary has sprung up across all major news outlets, which is a testament to how just how important he was to the cultural landscape. There is nothing of substance I can add to those official accounts.

I’m sure there will be an ill-advised attempt at a tribute performance, I’m already writing my refutation of that event in my head, so I’ll hold my fire for now.

The first time I saw Rush was in 1986 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on the Power Windows Tour. It was a seismic event that opened my eyes to what drummers in bands could ideally become.

Over the subsequent decades, a Rush concert was a nearly annual event to look forward to. Sometimes scheduling conflicts arose. In 1994 I drove from Philly to DC for the Roll the Bones Tour. On a couple occasions, I drove to Hershey Arena later in their career because any tour at that point could have been the last one. On the Snakes and Arrows Tour, I flew to Florida to see them live. Those pilgrimages were made without a thought to whether the effort outweighed the reward. The experience was always, always worth the cost of getting to the show.

The show within a show - the drum solo - of course was always the highlight. NP was one of the best drumset soloists in any genre. More on that later.

This of course does not even take into account his skill as an author, which is a whole other discussion.

The loss of Neil Peart leaves a massive hole in the landscape that will never be filled, nor should it be.

For a guy who wasn’t interested in being a celebrity, he had an absolutely massive impact on millions of people. He avoided the limelight, but yet he reached many young and not so young musicians in a very personal way. I think it’s attributable to his undiluted thirst for perfection and quality. People - and audiences - do understand that. Striving for perfection does get rewarded in the long run.

Tribute bands and pretenders come and go. True originals live forever: Buddy Rich and now Neil Peart.

He was an uncompromising artist who strove for perfection. All we can do is aspire to the same ideals.

Below are some pictures I took from the final Rush tour, the R40 Tour, at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philly, 2015.