Watch A Who’s Who of Drummers Set For Neil Peart Tribute Concert
A tribute to Rush's late drummer Neil Peart will take place this weekend online, with such heavyweights as Stewart Copeland, Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, Chicago’s Danny Seraphine, and Cindy Blackman-Santana set to perform.
Neil Peart died on January 7th of this year at the age of 67, after battling brain cancer since 2017. Proceeds from ticket sales to the livestream show will benefit brain tumor research at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in memory of Peart.
Rolling Stone reported the LiveXLive Modern Drummer Festival 2020: A Tribute To Neil Peart will run this Saturday, September 12th, at 5:00 p.m. PDT, and "will be available to watch on Fite.tv. A ticket to the pay-per-view event costs $12.99 and lets you stream the show from your phone, tablet or computer. You can also watch it on your TV through the Fite TV app, which lets you cast the action onto the screen via Apple TV, Roku Streaming Stick, Fire TV and more."
Among the other performers are Korn's Ray Luzier, Carmine Appice, Styx's Todd Sucherman, longtime John Fogerty drummer Kenny Aronoff, Gregg Bissonette from Ringo Starr's All Starr Band, and Kristina Schiano.
The Peart tribute will also feature appearances by Carl Palmer, Kiss' Eric Singer, and Mike Portnoy, among many, many others. For ticket information and more details go here.
Triumph drummer Gil Moore, a fellow Canadian who made his bones and cut his chops on the North American concert circuit the same time as Rush, explained how Neil Peart carried on the tradition of aggressive lead drumming, which he learned from his heroes: "When I think of Neil's playing style, the first guy I think of is Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell. Neil's style, which is, sort of, a very drummer take all -- he plays the heck out of everything on his drums, right? So, opposed, to say, the guys that evolved from the Alan Jackson, Levon Helm, John Bonham - school and, kind of, lay back between the waits on these spaces; the Keith Moon's and the Neil Peart's, and the Ginger Baker's, and the Mitch Mitchell's -- they were the guys that went the reverse route, and they filled all over the place, and kind of, drove the rhythm from in front of it, rather than sitting behind it."