AF2K - Drum Solo (YYZ into Red Lenses, Power Windows Tour style)

Drum Solo from AF2K's Power Windows 40th anniversary celebration, performed live by A Farewell to Kings (AF2K) at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware October 24, 2025. About the solo: When planning for AF2K's Power Windows 40th Anniversary shows celebrating the release of Power Windows by Rush, I decided to also present a new drum solo that was more stylized to what Neil Peart performed on the Power Windows tour. My research began with listening to every available bootleg of Neil's solos from the tour (I managed to track down 14 with decipherable audio in total), and charting a form. Interestingly at some point between January 12 and March 3 (The two closest together bootlegs i could find here) The form of the solo changed in a significant way. Up to January 12, the solo featured the famous Cowbell section near the end of the solo, much like ESL. From March 3 onward however, Neil switched the solo to start with the cowbells, much like the famous Rhythm Method solo from A Show of Hands of the near future. I decided to go with the latter of these two forms to better differentiate this solo from my ESL transcription, and so the solo would be more representative of the "arrival point" of the tour; another key step on Neil's journey to The Rhythm Method. That change aside, each night Neil would generally follow the same form; he planned ideas or concepts in sequence, but improvised either partially or fully within some of the concepts. Then, each would typically have composed interludes to join them together in which improvisation was minimal to none. Because of this element of improvisation within the concepts, there was a lot of different material to choose from to transcribe. I decided the best course of action would be to select my favorite version of each section, and then stitch them together into the "ultimate" Power WIndows tour solo. This solo is the result; a solo that Neil technically never played, but constructed entirely from parts he did play at some point on the tour, with a few slight modifications in the moment (both intentional and unintentional at times!) on my part. The solos with parts that ended up in this transcription are: March 3, 1986: Quebec City, QU at Le Colisée De Quebec March 24, 1986: Milwaukee, WI at the MECCA Arena March 31, 1986: East Rutherford, NJ at the Meadowlands Arena April 16, 1986: Philadelphia, PA at the Philadelphia Spectrum May 1, 1986: Oklahoma City, OK at the Myriad Arena May 26, 1986: Costa Mesa, CA at the Pacific Amphitheatre If you read that whole thing: Wow, thanks! Hope you found some of my info dump ramblings interesting! Thumbnail photo by Mikey Limes #drums #drum #drumming #drummer #drummers #drummersofinstagram #drummerslife #drumcover #drumcam #drumset #drumsetup #livedrumming #livemusic #music #performance #rush #neilpeart #af2k #rushtribute #tribute #tributeband #percussioninstrument #percussion #nj #newjersey #gardenstate #musician #musicalinstrument #musica #musicvideo #musicgenre #musicproducer #musicians #musicianlife #recording #audio #liveaudio #liverecording #liveperformance #performance #drumsolo #drumcam #yyz #redlenses #solo #transcription #powerwindows Links: ► All socials and links: https://linktr.ee/fromnowheremusic ► Discord:   / discord   ► Twitch:   / fromnowhere   ► Twitter:   / nowherewaffles   ► Bandcamp: https://fromnowhere.bandcamp.com/ ► Soundcloud:   / user-123062553