RUSH drum legend Neil Peart has penned a new News, Weather And Sports diary on his official website where he talks about the band's journey into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. An excerpt follows:

"This first leg of the second part of the Clockwork Angels Tour, in spring, 2013, had been designed to be an East-Coast run. However, late last year the band was informed that our presence might be required at some little awards show on the West Coast, in mid-April.

At the time, the odds of us being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seemed unlikely-to-absurd, after something like fourteen years of rejection, but apparently we were “on the ballot.” So manager Ray insisted we had to factor it into our plans, and adjustments had to be made.

One change that suited me was that instead of band rehearsals taking place in Toronto, as usual, they would be in Los Angeles. So I would have a few extra weeks at home. In December I got a message from Ray asking me to call him. Fearing bad news (we get our share of that, like anyone else), I called him with a little trepidation. When Ray told me we were “in,” it took a while to process the mix of feelings: disbelief, delight, and a little more trepidation. There would be . . . challenges . . .

Following my own pre-tour preparations at the local Y, and at Drum Channel’s studio (two-and-a-half weeks of playing along with the recorded versions of the show, tuning up my technique and stamina), I joined the Guys at Work (Alex, Geddy, and our crew) at a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley.

That was when things started to become surreal.

On our last day in the warehouse, we were joined by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins from the FOO FIGHTERS, and our mutual coproducer Nick “Booujzhe” Raskulinecz. They wanted to rehearse their spoof of us from . . . thirty-six years ago (see video below).

By now, the televised show in all its glory (I have faith it will retain the essence of what it was like to experience the real-time event — truly larger than life) will be widely shared. The performances, the speeches, the humor, and the overwhelming gathering of the Great and the Good are part of some kind of history now. However, the inner experience of living all that was something else again. Not larger than life, but exactly life-size.

The only way to portray even the ghost of what that few days felt like from the inside might be to jump ahead to when it was over — to a “reflective” moment."

Read more at Neilpeart.net.