Welcome to other nominations here but I can't think of any other scenario that rivals this!
A pleasure to read - thank you, Mark!
Zeppelin very deliberately did not attempt to find a long-term replacement for Bonham, etc. And all the other major examples I can think of are certainly a big deal (Brian Johnson for Bon Scott, say) but not really even remotely comparable to stepping in for Neil.
A few thoughts on my surreal visit with Rush in Toronto: open.substack.com/pub/darkforc...