When did neil peart become a big deal????

I'd imagine Neil got his first significant bump towards 'legendary' status (with the general public - as opposed to specifically musicians and/or hardcore music fanatics) with the drum solo on the first live album. I say that because I don't think most people are as impressed by how drummers play "within" songs as that requires more attention be paid. Obviously a drum solo being 'solo' its pretty easy to notice for most people.

On a side note, it seems weird that many people here are saying (or at least implying) that they were some totally unknown underground band who blew up in 1981 with 'Moving Pictures' because that is obviously not true.

2112 took off big time as an album on its original release achieving either their best album chart placing to that point in time by a significant margin (Can #5 and US #61) and in the UK their first ever album chart placement (UK#33). Actually I wonder if 2112 was their first US album chart placing as the first three albums charted outside the top 100, but those placings may have occurred after (and as a result of) 2112's chart success, rather than on their original release.

'Closer To The Heart' did pretty well as a single (especially for a 'prog-rock' group) at UK#36. Hemispheres was commercially a bit of a relative disappointment - kinda like Caress was after Fly By Night (but to a lesser extent) Permanent Waves was a commercial return to form with another 'hit single' Spirit Of Radio UK#13. Then they just missed the US Top 40 with 'Tom Sawyer' US #44 from Moving Pictures. They finally got a genuine hit single in the states with 'New World Man' from Signals at US#21.

So it was definitely more of a steady climb rather than "they went from complete unknowns to instant superstars as soon as 'Tom Sawyer' was released as a single."

So - back to the topic - no it also wasnt the semi-hit status of 'Tom Sawyer' that propelled Neil Peart instantly from "any other drummer" status to "drum-god"

 

I became familiar with the band around '78 with Hemispheres, though I had them in my periphery before that as well. But it was around that time I remember my circle of friends talking about Peart's ridiculously complex drum set up, being aspiring musicians ourselves. This was just a bunch of 14 year olds talking, I'm sure professionals in the industry had already taken notice by then. Not to say he was a "big deal" by then as the OP put it, but the suggestion that it was the Moving Pictures era that it happened seems late to me.

 

The minute he was born.

 

Damn! You beat me to it...

 

He is, without a doubt, the best I have seen live. I have seen my fair share of great drummers live (Carl Palmer, Carter Beauford, Mike Mangini, Mike Portnoy, Ryan Van Poederooyen, etc.) but Peart leaves them all in the dust, from a compositional and performance standpoint.

 

Ft. Wayne is a small town?
I guess Kokomo would be a village lol

 

1976

 

Dennis Chambers, Dave Weckl, Antonio Sanchez and Marco Minnemann are the only drummers I've seen (live) that come close to NP...but only playing his own material, I hate it when he plays jazz!

There are plenty of drummers that technically wipe the floor with him but they don't have the same compositional ability, or just the downright pizzazz!

 

I had a number of projects for the hospitals in Kokomo back in the 80s and 90s. I enjoyed going
there. You do get your fair share of tornados though.......

 

I'm a Rush fan and Peart was a big influence on my own playing in the 70s, but I wouldn't put him in my top 10 drummers any longer.

Part of that is simply because my tastes have changed because what I was aiming for as a drummer changed sometime in the 80s . . . I started gravitating towards a combo of "feel"/"groove" players, unusually creative players and more free/flowing players. I think of Peart as more of a precision/control player.

But I still like Peart's playing a lot, and I'd still put him in my top 30 or so.

It's interesting that Peart recently took lessons from someone who I would put in my top ten (well or close to it at any rate), and who is a "free/flowing" player--Peter Erskine.

 

Neil became a big deal when we all heard the Working Man solo on the All the World's a Stage album for the first time. That was the moment that really drew attention to Rush in our neck of the woods. Then we heard 2112 and Farewell to Kings and we were hooked. Pass the bong please!

 

A bit off topic, but that cygnus x-1 site is great and is such a rabbit hole (as is 2212.net)!

 

hemispheres on vinyl.. great stuff

 

Ever since Caress Of Steel they've been a headliner.

 

Yeah, but not 17-20,000 seaters that far back. I don't know when they would have first been headlining venues of that size--they might have done some on the Farewell to Kings tour (and unfortunately, I can't recall what venue I saw them in for that tour), but definitely they were playing some halls that size on the Hemispheres tour (and I do recall that I saw them at the Hollywood Sportatorium on that tour).

Actually, I just looked it up and it was the Sportatorium for Farewell to Kings, too. For the 2112 tour, however, I saw them in a 5,000 seat venue (the West Palm Beach Auditorium).

So the change would make sense with the change in their radio presence. A Farewell to Kings was when they started getting heavier radio play. I just couldn't recall the exact timeline, and I couldn't recall whether it was the Sportatorium for that tour.

 

They stepped up to c.8k arenas in the UK for the Moving Pictures/Exit Stage Left tour, for Permanent Waves they were still playing theatres.

 

The Pacific Coliseum, read the most critical Canadian venue to get a good review from, holds around 18,000, IIRC, and it has been packed for every Rush appearance since Caress Of Steel. IIRC 2112 was a sold out show up here. Long before Farewell to Kings. There's a big difference between our two country's acceptance of Canada's untouched legend of percussion as far as a time frame goes. Rush were already legends here before their first song made the top 100. Nobody was doing anything close to Rush in 70's.

 

Yeah, it would make sense that they reached different levels of success at different times in different countries. (See another poster above for example that they only moved up to ~8000-seaters around Moving Pictures time in the UK.) Cool that they were playing venues that big in Canada that early.

I know my cousins saw them once in Ohio around 1977 at a theater that was only 2500-3000 seats, but that was an unusual gig for them, because they'd already played places bigger than that in Cleveland.

How early were they getting a lot of radio play in Canada?

 

They were doing very well early on in certain areas. I think they always did well in Detroit, also in Texas and I'm sure certain Canadian markets where they were headlining an arena. But they were pretty much a theater band up until Moving Pictures came out. That's when they started commanding arenas ever since. I believe it was that tour where they first played Madison Square Garden as well.

 

I found a gig history online:
Tours | Rush.com

(That's where I double-checked where I saw them on the Farewell to Kings tour)

It looks like they were mostly doing large venues in the US by the Hemispheres tour, and a third to a half of their US dates were large venues on the Farewell to Kings tour. NYC--they were at the Palladium--appears to be a relative oddity on the Hemispheres tour. As close to NYC as Philly they played the Spectrum on that tour.

 

When Neil got name checked by Crow T. Robot ("The true story of Neil Peart.") on Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 907 "Hobgoblins" (alas... Crow mispronounced Neil's last name.)

 

They started receiving the radio play only because we had truly dedicated FM stations playing full albums like this and Zepplin's III etc. The regular AM play wasn't happening for them yet. Mainstream started to happen with 2112 simply because radio up here could no longer ignore them due to multiple requests and when All The World's A Stage hit they received more radio time, but it was Farewell To Kings that started the regular play.

 

LOL I'm loving this topic but this whole conversation (and the historical posts of several others in the thread) is well-documented in reverse, on the R40 tour. We got to watch them go from stadiums and arenas with elaborate lasers and stacks of amps, back to auditoriums, sheds and hockey rinks, back to red velvet theaters and then all the way back to high school gymnasiums with the scoreboards and everything!

 

Not quite. If they were headlining, why was that tour in support of Caress called "Down the Tubes" then? The headlining didn't really kick in until after 1976

 

I use key word there, have a friend (so called) who thought neil peart was a robot who drummed with no feeling and did the same stuff all the time. He said the best drummer in the world was that carter buffered, dave Matthews drummer. or whatever his name is.. He said no one is better than him. and he meant no one..