Looking into the magician's hat

I am 55 years old and I've been a musician since the tender age of 13 when I started playing snare in the school band. I seemed to have a natural aptitude for understanding rhythm and I spent the next few years honing that skill to a fairly high degree. Being the scrawny geek that I was, I was never going to have a trophy shelf filled with monuments to my physical abilities. I did, however, have a shelf filled with monuments to my musical abilities that I was quite proud of.
Around the time I turned 17, I took Music Theory as an elective in High School because I had satisfied most of the core curriculum for my senior year before I even got there. At the urging of my theory teacher, I decided to take up a melodic instrument to better use the new language I was learning. I was playing drums in a band and on a dare from the guitarist and mostly because I thought it would attract girls, I took up guitar and began to teach myself the instrument. I borrowed a battered Mel Bay chord book and began learning chords as best I could. The pain and frustration of those first few weeks learning chords still makes me both grimace and smile. Human fingers are really not meant to bend the way chords require them to bend and the pain was excruciating as I began to build callouses and the necessary hand strength needed to play the dreaded F chord and the elusive B7.
Now, playing drums does require a fairly substantial amount of dexterity but it did not prepare me for what lay ahead playing guitar. Guitar opened up a whole new world of pain and mounting disappointment in how terrible I really was.
Slowly, agonizingly, I began to get better at playing chords and started using my theory materials, written for piano, on guitar learning scales at a snails pace. I got to the point where I could pick out little melodies from TV shows and songs on the radio. I bought a book filled with scales for guitar and soon started learning them, running scale drills and learning to understand the basic patterns the guitar neck had.
Fast forward quite a few years and I had developed into a fairly accomplished player, using both my ability to read and the ample ear training I had learned in band. I could improvise pretty well as far as soloing was concerned and had a strong grasp of the neck and where to find the chords I needed to play almost any rock song.
I had already discovered the music of Rush when I started learning guitar but that seemed light years beyond what I was capable of.
That was until I found and purchased a huge book called "Rush:Complete Volume 1". It had everything from the first album up to and including "Signals".
That was a defining moment in my life as a musician as I began literally devouring the music and learning to play much of it.
I already had all the albums so I started at the beginning and worked my way further into it. I was essentially teaching myself to play guitar using Rush as the main medium to accomplish it. It was a daunting challenge to say the least but it taught me more than I could ever have guessed.
I spent many years in and out of bands playing guitar in front of crowds that loved it, liked it or just tolerated it. I used to love that nervous excitement I would feel before a gig because it ultimately makes you play better in the end. It's nice if the crowd is "on your side" too but I fell in love with being on stage doing something I truly loved to do.
Years passed and the love began to fade as I seemed to play the same songs over and over again no matter what band I was in. The shine had left and I no longer felt nervous before a gig. That's a bad space to be in. It makes you lazy and complacent and you never do your best when you're in that space.
The last couple years for me have been filled with disappointment and boredom at the thought of once again taking the stage and being forced to play the same songs I had been playing for almost 30 years. I was almost to the point of folding up my "tent" so to speak, and giving up live performance forever. I had come to the point that I would rather shove an ice pick into my eye than play Margaritaville or Sweet Home Alabama one more time.
In absolute desperation one morning, I posted an ad on Craig'sList looking for musicians to start a Rush tribute project. I had never been able to play Rush in front of an audience because the music is so demanding and technically challenging. I had resigned myself to the fact that the only way I would ever play their music was sitting at home using backing tracks or whatever else I could get my hands on.
To my complete and utter astonishment, I was contacted by both a bassist and a drummer who were interested in doing a tribute project. The bass player also sings and plays keys and the drummer is a huge Neil fan.
It might seem strange to put myself through the needed work and focus to play Rush music at this late point in my musical life but to be truthful, I know I don't have many stage years left ahead of me and I would rather spend them playing something I truly love with all my heart than play music that every other bar band is playing.
I want to be challenged again as a musician on stage. I want to be nervous before I take the stage again. Speaking only for myself, I play better when I'm a little scared. It forces me to focus and listen better to what's going on around me. I'm feeling a little jittery just thinking about the first rehearsal but this is ultimately where excellence is found on the inside of many musicians.
We've settled on the first few songs we're going to tackle and while I know most of them pretty well, there are a few I need to brush up on simply because I got tired of playing them at home by myself. There are also a couple I never bothered to learn because Rush music has always been a bit like watching a magic trick being performed flawlessly by a true master. Sometimes, it's better not to know how the trick is done so you can suspend your own disbelief and retain the wonder of seeing it done. I didn't want to ruin the trick by looking inside the magician's hat only to see a false bottom. At this point in my life as a musician, I seldom listen to music the way I used to. I listen to it now with a critical ear, always examining its construction and the elements of theory and how they apply to the song. I've learned quite a few of the magic tricks at this point but there are still a few that I listen to just for pure enjoyment, waiting for that sense of wonder I used to have for all of their music.
I sometimes envy non-musicians for their ability to just listen for the sake of the music.
My sincerest hope is to see that look of wonder on the faces of the audience as I play the music that so many of them see as magic tricks. With any luck, I'll be able to feel that same sense of wonder that they feel when they listen to Rush. 
That would be the greatest gift of all.