About a hundred pages in. So far very good. ( )

How does a band work up a setlist for their next tour when the guitarist doesn’t want to use the same guitar two songs in a row, the drummer doesn’t want the same tempo twice in a row, and the vocalist/bassist doesn’t want to spend too much time behind the keyboards? Apparently, when you have 17 studio albums across 30 years to choose from, you can still come up with a 3 hour show that satisfies all the members’ wishes and makes the fans happy, too. These kind of behind-the-scenes tidbits kept me interested throughout this story of Neil Peart’s motorcycle journey during Rush’s R30 tour in 2004. He traveled almost exclusively by motorcycle between each show, taking the smallest and remotest possible roads, hitting as many US national parks as possible, and taking notes on his experiences and observations along the way.

Unfortunately, he did not keep very detailed notes during his North American journey, as he was apparently too exhausted after traveling all day and performing that night to note much more than his various aches and pains, the traffic, mileage, meals, and how well he felt he performed behind the drums. He does sprinkle the narrative with his observations during the show, recollections of past tours and events, and crazy fan behavior. The European journey was far more interesting, with more detailed descriptions of the scenery and people he encountered.

I think it helped that this was on audio, although Brian Sutherland’s reading was fairly uninspired, because the relatively dull North American section required no reading effort from me. I don’t think I’d recommend this book for non-Rush fans, or non-motorcycle fans. Truthfully, this was a 3 star read, but I added an extra star because Rush.

Crossposted on Booklikes ( )

An interesting book. Peart writes about what it was like to tour by motorcycle through the continental US and Europe during Rush’s R30 tour. Reading it really feels like you are simply spending time with someone who is well read, interesting and interested as they bike from worksite to worksite making casual observations along the way. I certainly appreciated Peart’s discussion of drivers in Florida comparing them to the driving culture in Europe. Ditto the policing culture in the US vs Europe. Something that is quite insightful is Peart’s experience with fans who assume they are owed something from those who are the recipients of their fandom. It seems to me that fans forget that the objects of their fandom are also normal people trying to live a normal life that includes working to entertain fans and produce music for music lovers. Neil Peart was voted for many many years before he died to be the greatest drummer in the world. I remember reading one survey years ago polling readers who the best drummer is 2nd to Neil Peart because he was always listed number one. What is interesting to read in this travelogue is how this adulation and appreciation for his drumming prowess never seemed to go to Peart’s head. Despite being acknowledged as the greatest drummer he continued to try and develop his technique, skill and artistry being his own worst critic. In reminds me that we are often the unreliable narrator of our own lives. Finally, what is it like to reach the pinnacle of your career having seemingly come to your own physical limitations in terms of being able to further improve? It is interesting to read Peart’s assessment that even though drumming with Rush was difficult work, it was always enjoyable in the first half of his career especially on tour when he felt the feedback from the audience and the gelling with his band mates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. However, after he reached his physical limits, touring became a grind. Peart continued playing and released two more studio albums with Rush and doing another tour (R40) before dying in 2020. He may have felt that he reached his pinnacle as a drummer back in 2006, but he still released with Rush two more excellent albums: “Snakes and Arrows” and “Clockwork Angels.”
I like this rating system by ashleytylerjohn of LibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/profile/ashleytylerjohn) that I have also adopted:
(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.) ( )

Well, I suppose I eventually had to be done savoring this one. Neil Peart died on January 7th and I still had this unread on my shelf. There are three more travelogue/memoirs that I must find but for now, I say goodbye with this one. With the backdrops of Rush's R30 tour and the countrysides he rode through on his motorcycle, Peart's prosaic skill rolls smoothly, if punctuated with stops of interests. I have thought that Peart saw a lot - he rode more than 200,000 miles on his motorcycle as of that writing - but he seemed to only observe the things that mattered to him. I can appreciate that. I've found myself doing much the same in the past 20 or so years. And as with his previous books he recounts some of those observations here. I flagged several dozen lines and passages, and as is usual, I'll have to sift for what I share here ... his chapters are long! ... but I'll start with the first few paragraphs of his epilogue "on with the story":

On a tour of fifty-seven shows, in nine countries, I played in front of 544,525 people, and went through 257 pairs of drumsticks, one 20-inch cymbal, three 18-inch cymbals, six 16-inch cymbals, two China cymbals, fifteen drumheads, 21,000 motorcycle miles, nineteen countries, twelve oil changes, five sets of tires, one lost luggage case (including Patek Philippe watch and Cartier engagement ring - as Michael suspected, my fickle Good Samaritan must have found them and changed his mind; he never did call back), thirty-four bottles of The Macallan (my riding partners helped), four cartons of Red Apples (ditto), 18,617 words of journal notes, an immeasurable outpouring of physical and mental energy, and an undetermined amount of hearing loss.
I celebrated my fifty-second birthday, almost forty years of drumming, thirty years of making music with Rush, twenty years of bicycling, ten years and almost 200,000 miles of motorcycling, and four years of marriage.
I laughed, I cried, I ached, I sweated, I despaired, I was joyful, I was miserable, I hated it, I loved it, I made friends, I made enemies, I made music, I made gas money, I made time to live and love.
[...]

Still confounds me that a man who thinks the way he does, reads what he does, appreciates the finer things of life - The Macallan! - can smoke "Red Apples", but it was his life and not mine.

Peart talks of the preparations for the performances (Geddy said he was the only person who rehearsed to rehearse!) and his travels, the routines he'd adopted to ensure he could maintain his privacy, perform as well as he could, see as much as he could. Glimpses into a touring life, a touch of candid here and there, church signs noted from the roads, fan interactions, correspondence. He talks of taking a couple of Bufferins for the pain - as someone with arthritis and chronic pain, I have no idea how that could do anything more than a small dent, but I guess his physiology is different. Books he'd read - several making their way onto my List, music he liked and disliked, a smattering of television and movies. Tribulations of motorcycle and (band) technology breakdowns. Memories of loss - daughter, wife/partner, long time crew, friends. Memories of past tours. He collects fridge magnets, and yet...watches Family Guy?? These stories are the best, and now only, way for someone outside his tight circle to get to know him just a little. And I appreciate that.

Now, a sampling of things that caught my brain, or that I just noted for some reason...

Admiration for his bandmates, and some of the problems of being so multi-talented: "...Geddy, who found himself shouldering a heavy double-neck guitar while he played keyboards with his hands, pedals with his right foot - leaving all his weight on his left - while singing the lead vocals. It was an ergonomic nightmare, a mental tapdance, and it didn't leave him much room for jumping around and having fun." Or how Geddy always had a baseball game on, and played fantasy baseball. "Before a tour, Geddy would work for months with the film companies on developing animation and mood-pieces for the big screen behind our stage, to complement a number of songs in the show. The previous year, Alex had spent weeks of long days in a Toronto recording studio with engineer Jimbo, working on the audio mixes for our Rush in Rio DVD." or "In one part of the long instrumental “La Villa Strangiato,” Geddy and I played a quiet jazz riff while Alex stepped to the microphone and told a little story. As on the previous tour, his monologues would be different every night, springing from the endlessly inventive and spontaneous brain of our 'musical scientist.'" And concern..."I was fairly well protected behind a barricade of drums and cymbals, but I always worried about Alex and Geddy—they were so vulnerable out there."

On composition of his solos

I also spent a lot of time working after hours to put my drum solo together. I always preferred to arrange my drum solo, to compose a structure that would be consistent for each night's performance, but still allow room for improvisation and inspiration. Often I would listen to the previous tour's solo and think, "I'm not really finished with that structure - I could keep working on that." But as a matter of principle, I forced my self to change it all around, or at least put the parts I liked in a different order.
[...and later, when on tour...from his journal]
The show last night so nearly perfect, already felt that autopilot mentality, the pleasant flow of things coming out of me without having to ... be provoked.
Especially the drum solo, finally got everything I wanted in there, in terms of elements and transitions, each of them very spirited, and free-spirited - truly improvised. What I've been trying to get into the waltz section, of interposing the odd times over it, I managed to get a really nice pattern of seven going over the three, and now it's time for five. And the four over three too - got it perfectly together.

He talks of the good - the magic - nights, and the less than good as well.

Church signs, bumper stickers and things he'd read...

...and once I passed a truck with a big sticker on the back showing a waving U.S. flag with a golden Christian cross superimposed over it. In big letters, the caption read, "WE WANT IT BACK." A little shocked at this blatant mixture of symbols - American equals Christian - I made a wry face and shook my helmet sadly, "You already have it."

[At the Grand Canyon] Transfixed by the sweeping majesty of the setting, we stood before a deep, striated gash cut into the earth, a spectacular creation of erosion and geological upheaval. Multicolored layers of rock were shaped into dendritic canyons, battlements, and deep gorges, all of it on a scale that staggered the sense. I thought of that Tennessee professor teaching that it had been made in three weeks - because "scripture trumps interpretations of physical data." Not my scripture.
Or the church sign, "FAITH IS A HIGHER FACULTY THAN REASON." Not my reason.

Not my reason either.

On driving

In my experience, Florida was the worst state in the Union in which to drive a car, ride a motorcycle, or ride a bicycle. Turn signals seemed to be a deleted option on all vehicles; on multi-lane highways there was no such thing as a passing lane, and the general mood on Florida roads ranged from oblivious to discourteous to downright hostile. Those attitudes often prevailed elsewhere in North America, of course, from coast to coast, but nowhere near as universally as in Florida.

Hear! Hear! (Virginia is a close second in my book.)

And speaking of Florida, he nails it:

Somehow Florida was not generally thought of as a "Southern" state, in the ways that Mississippi and Alabama were, but certain regions of central Florida I had passed through, away from the beaches and Disneyfied resorts, were the most abject manifestations of Deep South you could find anywhere. Well away from the Mickey Mouse ears, the Art Deco theme park of South Beach, and the vulgar showplaces of the rich and tasteless, the locals could seem as inbred and xenophobic as those characters in Deliverance. The Confederate flag and gun racks decorated as many pickups and mobile homes as you might expect to see in Alabama or Mississippi, and place names like Yeehaw Junction, Dixie Ranch Acres, and even Suwanee River are all found in Florida.

Sad, but true.

On writing and publishing:
When copies of his The Masked Rider finally caught up on the eighth show of the tour, it was missing all of the photographs and maps, a section title had been changed from "White Man, Where You Going?" (a quote from an African in the story) to "White Man, Where Are You Going?" He says, "I was terrified to read further and see what other solecisms the book contained, but this was enough." (They were able to force the publisher to recall all 5000 copies from the first printing.)

And advice from his editor on his early travel journals: "One good example was Mark's forbidding me to use words like 'beautiful' and 'interesting,' explaining that those words were meaningless to a reader who wouldn't know what I might consider beautiful or interesting." And staying away from the trap of Hemingway ("No sentences like 'It was a good road.'")

And lyrics: He talked about Coleridge, his original intent for Xanadu being inspired by Citizen Kane but after reading Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", he said

...I was so powerfully impressed by it that the poem took over the song. In the end, there was entirely too much "honey dew" in it - too much Coleridge, that is to say - and though musically the song was one of our earliest big "epics," I never cared much for the lyrics.

Now, being a travelogue, there is a lot of description of the places he saw and you'll have to discover that yourself... about the "constellation of greater Los Angeles", or the national parks he was obsessed with hitting on this tour, or the Alps: "To my eyes, and to my soul, the most beautiful part of the world was the Alps, not just in Switzerland, but where they spilled into Germany's Bavaria, Austria, France, and Italy."

If you are a fan, highly recommended. If not... why are we still talking? ( )