Rush drummer Neil Peart has colourfully and poignantly remembered the band's longtime photographer Andrew MacNaughtan as details about the lensman's Toronto funeral have been released.
There will be a 3-7 p.m. visitation for family and friends only at Mount Pleasant Visitation Centre on Thursday (Feb. 2) with a public memorial to be held later. MacNaughtan died at the age of 47 of a heart attack on Jan. 25, 2012, after a photo shoot with Rush in L.A.
Peart wrote on his website, neilpeart.net, that he first met MacNaughtan in Toronto in 1985 when his concert photos caught his eye.
Later, MacNaughtan would become Rush's near-exclusive photographer, in concert, formal portraits, rehearsals and recording sessions, and even served as the band's personal assistant for two tours, Presto and Roll the Bones.
More importantly, as Peart was grieving the deaths of his wife (from cancer) and daughter (in a car accident) in the late '90s, MacNaugthan urged Peart to come and visit him in L.A. where he had moved.
In the process, Peart, met new friends like South Park co-creator Matt Stone.
"Andrew and I attended the South Park Halloween party, him as an SAS officer and me as 'Mandy the English biker chic,' " wrote Peart. "Andrew cut a slightly better figure as a soldier than I did as a leather-clad, foam-enhanced drag queen, seven feet tall under a gigantic blonde bouffant, with lavish, lurid makeup but I was definitely more imposing. Grown men wept."
Peart said MacNaughtan was determined to find a "match" for "this crusty old widower," and eventually did in the form of a photo assistant named Carrie, who he married in 2000 with MacNaughtan as usher at their Santa Barbara wedding.
"Introducing me to Carrie was a life-changing gift," writes Peart.
In lieu of flowers, MacNaughtan's family has asked that donations be given to the charity that MacNaughtan founded, artgiveshope.ca.
