BarrieToday freelance photojournalist Kevin Lamb is a longtime Rush fan and gathered his thoughts following the death of the Canadian band's drummer this week. Neil Peart's death was announced yesterday by the band.
It was 4:15 in the afternoon yesterday and I was flipping through records in a bin at a junk shop.
My watch buzzed. I raised my arm and looked at it.
It was a news alert that read: “Rush drummer Neil Peart dead at 67.”
“Nope,” I said to myself and continued flipping through the bin searching beyond the dusty Anne Murray, Walter Ostanek and countless gospel albums for some sort of gem of a record.
My mind was wanting to shut that blunt news out in disbelief.
It took me a few hours before I ventured onto social media and news sites to find out exactly what had happened.
Brain cancer. Glioblastoma to be exact. That same merciless disease that took Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie away from us not long ago.
Neil was, and is, my hero and this was shocking to me. It feels like losing a member of my family in some ways.
As all teenagers trying to find their own way in the world, Neil’s songwriting was the lens that I saw the world through as I tried to understand it at that time throughout the 1980s.
The deep and technical subject matter penned by Rush’s primary lyricist was not for everyone, but it grabbed hold of me and never let go.
My love of all things science was clearly seeded by his writing. Whether it was about a ship and its captain heading headlong into the mystery of black hole Cygnus X-1, or of a young man who has discovered the ancient miracle of music hidden within the walls of the Temples of Syrinx, his stories always captured my imagination.
So many different aspects of Rush helped to shape my young mind growing up. I truly believe that the apparent normalcy of the band members and the way they carried themselves in public kept me on a similar path at a time when my peers in school were experimenting with drugs and alcohol as we lived in subdivisions where “nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone."
To “conform or be cast out." “Be cool or be cast out.”
Neil could not have written a better song about the life of confused teens in a suburb in the 1970s and '80s as he did with the song Subdivisions off their 1982 album Signals. Don’t follow the crowd. Chart your own path. So I did.
If it just didn’t seem to fit with the Rush persona and their way of doing things as I saw it, then why would I try that? Instead, I picked up books like Neil did. If it was good for him, then it would suit me as well.
Fast forward a few decades and I find myself standing in the photo pit of the now former Air Canada Centre with my camera aimed at Neil behind his drum kit.
Another dream come true that photography has given me.
Thank you and rest in peace Mr. Peart.
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The following statement was made on Rush's website Friday:
It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate of over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer (Glioblastoma).
We ask that friends, fans, and media alike understandably respect the family’s need for privacy and peace at this extremely painful and difficult time. Those wishing to express their condolences can choose a cancer research group or charity of their choice and make a donation in Neil Peart’s name. Rest in peace brother.
Neil Peart: September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020
