Let’s be honest: covering Neil Peart is a bad idea for most experienced drummers. The guy didn’t just play a big kit — he played a 360 degree spaceship. And if you’ve ever tried to count along to a Rush song like “Tom Sawyer” without losing track around the bridge, you know what I mean.
So when a kid walks onstage and says she’s playing Rush, you brace yourself a little.
At the Fulcrum Foundation fundraiser in downtown Seattle, that kid was 12-year-old Victoria Acosta, and within about 30 seconds it was clear this wasn’t going to be a “good for her age” situation. She leaned into the fills instead of rushing them, and never once looked rattled. At one point she even smiled at her dad offstage like she was playing a middle-school talent show, not one of the most demanding drum parts in rock.
There’s a moment in every generation when you wonder who’s going to carry this music forward. Watching her tear into a Peart drum fill without flinching...you stop worrying so much.