Modern Drummer Magazine is a legacy publication with a loyal following. Those that subscribe don’t just read MD and then throw it away; they keep each edition—forever. To the drumming community, Modern Drummer is our Bible; it is both our inspiration and our posterity. And one of the key initiatives that helps us bring our community together and galvanize them in celebration of our artform is the Modern Drummer Festival. For 30 years, people from all over the globe would come to a venue to see some of the world’s greatest drummers perform. But this year has been no ordinary year.
In January, though, one of the most highly regarded drummers in the world, drumming legend Neil Peart of the band Rush, passed away from brain cancer. In February, I was named CEO/Publisher of Modern Drummer Magazine. I came to my new post. By March, the world shut down because of COVID. Venues were closed, bands stopped touring, drummers were stuck at home.
In a year marked by turmoil and tragedy, it became more and more clear to me and the entire MD team that what we all desperately needed was something great. We needed something that would bring us together to celebrate drumming while also paying tribute to Neil Peart. We needed to continue our festival heritage. We needed Modern Drummer Festival 2020 and to pay tribute to Neil Peart. The big question was, how were we going to pull that off virtually?
We began conversations with LiveXLive, the global music platform that streams music and live events. Their team jumped in with both feet to help us think through how we would structure our festival and get it out there for people to see. We set the festival date for Neil Peart’s birthday, September 12th, which seemed to give us plenty of time to put all the details together. We talked with Neil Peart’s family and estate and, after that, made the decision that proceeds from the festival would go to benefit brain cancer research at Cedars-Sinai Hospital where Neil was treated.
The more we spoke, though, the more we realized that the festival could not be done as a traditional “stage event.” There was no way to bring performers to a single location, bring in a camera crew and film and stream it live. It became abundantly clear that everything would need to be prerecorded and pre-produced. With less than three weeks to our air date, the Modern Drummer Festival 2020 changed from a streaming concert to something more like a three-hour music TV show/documentary.
And that’s when I called The M Network.
I’ve known Thom Mozloom for more than 25 years. He’s one of my closest friends. I knew that if there was anyone on the planet that could pull something like this off, it was Thom and his team at The M Network. And boy did they.
Pulling together footage shot by the drummers themselves, sent in a variety of different formats, The M Network team created a film event that kept us glued to our screens, building excitement and emotion for the entire show.
And it’s not just me who thought that what they accomplished was magic. Here’s a sample of what people said to us after the show ran for the first time:
It was truly an incredible accomplishment, a fantastic show, and a heartfelt tribute for a great cause. Thank you to all those involved.
You’ll find just a small taste of this amazing show here. Please consider watching the whole show. It’s available on the LiveXLive platform until December 11th.