RUSH drum legend Neil Peart has written the July installment of his News, Weather And Sports blog. An excerpt follows:

"On the night of our show at an amphitheater outside Chicago, some players from the Chicago Blackhawks, who had recently won the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup, brought the actual Cup out onstage in “YYZ,” toward the end of our show.

I knew in advance about the event, so during the second set I wore one of the hats I had made for the Hockey Theme project (see Fire On Ice for more context on the momentousness of this occasion), with the logos of the Original Six NHL teams. I turned the Chicago logo to face prominently front and center, and during the show, had to smile for John “Boom-Boom” Arrowsmith’s close-up.

The last five shows of this run were in Eastern Canada, and after crossing the border on the bus in Sarnia, Ontario, and parking in the local Château Walmart, Michael and I unloaded the bikes from the trailer and rode north to catch a ferry to Manitoulin Island. Brutus had been riding east from Alberta, and would meet us there that night—the West Side Beemer Boyz reunited again, and riding together for a few days—as only happens in Canada. During the following days off between shows in Hamilton, Ottawa, Quebec City, and two in Halifax, the three of us had some fantastic rides, with weather varying from rainy in Ontario to hot and sunny in Nova Scotia, and we stayed in the kind of pleasurable, treasurable accommodations only Brutus can discover.

The only dark spot was the Quebec City show. It was held outdoors in a vast open area—another famous battleground, the Plains of Abraham, from a battle between the French and English in 1759. It was just one theater of the Seven Years War—perhaps the real first World War, as it involved most of the Western Powers. (In Voltaire’s satirical novel Candide, published in 1758, he described the North American part of this war by saying they were fighting over “quelques arpents de neige”—some acres of snow.) That war’s effect on Canada’s history will come into this story again, when we finally “return” to the ending, Balancing Rock in Nova Scotia.

With something like 40,000 people in front of us—making more of a landscape than an audience—the first set went very well. During intermission, Geddy remarked how much he enjoyed playing these festival-style shows. (We had recently played similar events in Ottawa and Sweden.) He liked how the younger fans were able to make their way up front, instead of the older (and wealthier) people buying up the front rows, and the overall energy and excitement in such a setting.

I agreed, but said, 'The weather always makes me nervous.'

During the second set, just before we began 'The Garden', I started to see flurries of raindrops in the spotlight beams over the crowd. As we launched into the song, the wind gusted up, swirling rain all through the colored lightbeams flashing around the stage. Behind the vast crowd in front of me, lightning flickered in the distant darkness. Raindrops covered my cymbals enough to dampen their sound (literally and figuratively), and striking a crash cymbal sent a colorful fountain into the air. Of greatest concern were the exposed electronics—keyboards and foot pedals—and the delicate violins and cellos. (Later cellist Jacob told us, 'If it had been anyone but you guys, I would have been off that stage.') Just as we finished the song, monitor engineer Brent’s voice came over our ear monitors, 'The show is over. A storm is right on us. Make an announcement, and get off the stage.'

Hard to believe that in almost forty years, we had never had to stop a show in the middle like that. Only once, a couple of tours ago in Chicago, had an outdoor show been called just minutes before we were supposed to go onstage. (We made that one up later.) But never once in all those years had we stopped a show in the middle—so we had no policy."

Read more and check out photos at this location.