Not a particularly big Joe Bonamassa fan, but I liked what he played during the Freddy King tribute segment at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

No. THAT would be the Allman Brothers Band.

Only thing worse than an Eagles thread is a Journey thread, hehehe.

Anyone that gets the Muslims upset is okay by me. 'Atta girl Lady GaGa!

Well, it's been ages since I've checked this thread...seems there's a lot of unhappiness I've missed. I'll try to touch all the bases. FOOL IN THE RAIN: My first thoughts immediately went to poor little Leo...so young to get the pox. I'm relieved to read in your follow-up posts that the little grommet is doing better. Must be the Aussie toughness in him. And did I read this right: BD doing chores? Has the world flipped its axis?!? ALLY: I sort of knew you had back troubles but I had no idea the extent of the hip and back pain you've been suffering, my man. I feel bad for you having to go through this, and henceforth will spare you any of my sarcastic and caustic remarks. Hope the medical experts find you relief soon. MAJOR MAJOR: The man so deaf you have to call his name twice. As you can see, you'll still get a dose of my sarcasm...but being a Brit, I know you can take it. But egads my lad...mum-in-law squatting while the wifey's away?!? Sounds like a plot to have her spy on you to make sure you don't have a bird or two in the bush as well as the hand. Try some arsenic in her soup. That'll get rid of the old git, hehe. Tongue firmly in cheek, of course. JANGLES: More mommy troubles. Since my mother has been out of my life since I was 5, and my two subsequent stepmothers are also absent(one by choice, the other by suicide), that is one problem I am blessedly free from. But you have my sympathy, Jangles. I don't know how old you are, but if you're under 18, just try to survive until you graduate and then you'll be free. Good luck to you all...may your unhappiness be short-lived.

Mayve if it was 1976-77. I have a bootleg video of Stereolab playing the Cat's Cradle in 1996, and henceforth, I've always been curious about the place and hope to eventually see a show there. We are now in the 5th month of the year and I have only seen 10 concerts...I must be slowing down in my old age. Fortunately I'm picking up the pace...saw Jack White and his new band The Peacocks play the Mayan the last day of April(amazing as always) and I'm booked for at least 4 concerts this month, beginning tonight. May 12: Brian Jonestown Massacre @ the Wiltern This will be my 13th Brian Jonestown Massacre show. Lucky 13. The last time I saw BJM was 2005 or 2006, when they played a spectacularly psychedelic set, including a nearly 30-minute jam on "Sailor"...and I wasn't even on drugs. So it's been a good long 6 years or so and I'm curious as to how the band sounds now...or even who is in the band( besides Anton of course) given the revolving-door nature of BJM. I just hope Tambourine Man extraordinaire Joel Gion is still manning his post. I don't know anything about the opening band Blue Angel Lounge. But then, it doesn't matter as I am seeing a movie first, then going to the concert, so I will miss the opening bands.

Sounds good but Jagger will probably ask him to lose weight before he can play with the Stones again. Tickets will be $1000.

Got any pics from Hong Kong Juliet or Walter? I've seen the Lady GG three times(2 times on her own and once at a benefit with Yoko Ono), and she does what a pop star is supposed to do: put on a fun and glitzy show. She still comes across as a little too derivative of Madonna sometimes, but Madonna is a little long in the tooth to be "Madonna" these days, so Lady GaGa gives this generation of kids a more viable pop alternative than dreck like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Katy Perry, Jonas Bros., Justin Bieber, Ke$ha, and Nikki Minaj. I hope to take my nieces when GaGa tours L.A. again. Madonna will always be my #1, though.

Can't wait for both the book and Demme's "Neil Young's Journeys". Neil Young has always remained in my All-time Top 10 while others have fallen...I'm looking at you Pink Floyd and the Doors.

Maybe where you lived, but cassettes were in all the cars in Southern California in the 1970s. Hell, go watch "Two-Lane Blacktop", which came out in 1971; Warren Oates plays nothing but cassettes in his GTO. Maxell tapes were everywhere in the 70's...who could forget those great ads? One of the rituals of buying albums in the 70s was along with the record, you would buy some blank Maxell C-60s or C-90s, so you could make copies of the record for the car and for your friends. Where I came from, 8-tracks were not desirable at all...their sound was inferior and they often screwed up the song order and long songs would get spliced into two and so on. 8-tracks were considered car stereos for poor people. Cassettes were better, fidelity-wise and for staying true to the original album's format, than 8-tracks...both in the car and in the home. Growing up, just about every car I remember my folks and friends having, had car stereos with cassette players. I can only recall a couple people who had 8-track players. One was this guy down the street who had a van, and even he replaced his 8-track with a cassette system by 1975. And if you had a Blaupunkt in your car, you truly were the envy of all your friends. That was everyone's dream...to get a Blaupunkt for their car. Or at the very least, an Alpine. Obviously, reel-to-reel trumped both cassette and 8-track for high fidelity, but try hooking up a reel-to-reel in your car.

Post #12: Happy Easter! Led Zeppelin Resurrected My computer is dead and my phone stolen, so I've been distracted a tad...and then, there was Easter last weekend, so I've missed a couple dates in my timeline. Until I am able to retrieve some of my lost materials, I won't be able to attach any images for the time being, as I don't have time to go back digging through my storage to find everything again...it's all buried. Anyway, carrying on... Date: Easter Sunday April 10, 1977 It was Easter 35 years ago today and I didn't do much that entire weekend...saving my money and my energies for the week to come. Led Zeppelin, on the other hand, was just over a week into their tour, and was on this very night playing the last of their 4 shows at Chicago Stadium...the "Stormtrooper" show. Led Zeppelin had definitely resurrected, and earlier in the week...on Tuesday April 5, 1977, to be exact...there was a Los Angeles Times article about the opening show of the tour in Dallas, written by the Chief Pop Music critic for the Times, Robert Hilburn. This was kind of a big deal, as usually Hilburn only reviewed out-of-town shows for acts that he considered legendary: the Stones, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley. For Led Zeppelin, he would typically review the LA gig and that was it...and usually he would harp on what he felt was the band's lack of imagination and excess. For him to go out to Dallas for the opening of the 1977 tour was a big surprise to me and other long-time readers of Hilburn's work with the L.A. Times. The Concert Timeline section of this site only has part of the article in its Memorabilia archives, so I am reproducing it in full now...EXACTLY how it was written, not a word or letter changed. Los Angeles Times Tuesday April 5, 1977 View Section IV Page 1 Led Zeppelin Lands Safely in Dallas By Robert Hilburn Times Pop Music Critic DALLAS - Led Zeppelin, generally conceded to be the world's most popular rock 'n' roll band, has fond memories of this Texas city. It was here at the Dallas Pop Festival in 1969 that the then-recently formed English band climaxed a triumphant U.S. tour that established it as a major new force in rock. It was also in Dallas four years ago that a local oil man's daughter hired a private jet to follow Zeppelin's plane out of town. But neither those or other Dallas memories begin to match the importance-or emotionalism-of Zeppelin's appearance last weekend at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. The band, whose future has been in doubt since lead singer Robert Plant severely injured his right foot in a near-fatal 1975 auto crash, returned to live shows Friday night with a stirring performance that reassured both the group and its fans about Zeppelin's ability to continue. There were lots of rough spots in the band's first appearance in nearly two years, but there was only jubilation on the faces of Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham after the three-hour show as they raced to limousines for the ride to the airport. Later, inside the luxury Boeing 707 that the band has chartered for its U.S. tour, the group embraced with the emotionalism of a high school team that just won the state championship. "Sure, it was emotional," Plant said, relaxing in a New Orleans hotel room the next afternoon. "We had just cleared the biggest hurdle of our career. It was a chapter in my life that I never really knew if I'd be able to see. "I tried to keep a positive attitude in the months after the accident, but even after I was able to walk again I didn't know how the foot would holdup on stage. Even the rehearsals didn't prove it to me. I was so nervous before we went on stage last night that I almost threw up. I could feel the tenseness in my throat for the first couple of songs. I kept telling myself to loosen up. "The whole show possessed an element of emotionalism that I've never known before. I could just as easily have knelt on the stage and cried. I was so happy. I don't think I've ever sung better in America. I mean I'd have liked for everybody who ever wanted to see us to have been there..." Plant, 28, was vacationing with his wife and their two children when the auto accident occurred on a small Greek island. Doctors said he wouldn't be able to walk for at least six months. There was even a chance he would be crippled. Though touring was still out of the question, Plant had recovered well enough by late 1975 to record the "Presence" album with the band. But he had to sit on a stool during the 18 days of recording. With doctors warning another serious blow to the foot could leave him crippled, he went through a terrifying moment during the session. Caught up in the excitement of one of the tracks, he slipped and put his full weight on the foot for the first time since the accident. "Jimmy (Page) flew through the air and tried to hold me up, but I just sank. They took me to the hospital to make sure I hadn't reopened the fracture." In light of the incident, the band titled the track "Achilles Last Stand". With doctors' assurances that Plant's foot could stand up to the strain of his flashy, stallion-like prancing on stage, Zeppelin finally scheduled a U.S. tour for this spring. It was to have begun Feb. 27 in Ft. Worth. But it had to be canceled. Ironically, Plant was again the reason. He came down with tonsilitis just before the band, which had been rehearsing for weeks in England, was ready to come to the United States. The illness added to his frustration. "We had rehearsed right up until the week before we were due to come over here, which, I can see now, was probably pusghing things a bit too much," Plant said. "After the rehearsals, I went to Wales. I was in the hills when I woke up one morning with a soreness in my throat. I thought, 'Oh, good Lord, isn't there any end to this?' I had a fever that went clear off the thermometer. "I felt even worse because it was me again causing the problems. I haven't been away from performing this long since I was 14." On the first two legs of the rescheduled tour, Led Zeppelin will be seen by more than 700,000 persons in 40 shows. More than 108,000 will see the group in its six sold-out shows starting June 21 at the Inglewood Forum. It's the first time a rock group has ever played six nights at the 18,700-seat facility. Because of the delays, Plant, understandably, was the first member of the band to come to the hotel lobby Friday night for the ride to the auditorium. He chatted good-naturedly with a few fans and posed for pictures for amateur photographers. When the band stepped on stage just after 8, the audience roared its appreciation. Though much has been written about the aggressive nature of Zeppelin's audience in responding to the band's high-energy musical assault, the tone Friday was one of warmth. The audience, one sensed, was simply glad to see its band. "I was afraid we'd never be able to see them again," said Carol Morett, a 17-year-old from neighboring Ft. Worth. "When the tour was canceled the first time, I was afraid it was something wrong with Robert's leg. I thought the thing about tonsilitis was just an excuse. I'm so glad to see he's OK. He's the greatest. This whole band is the greatest." Never a critic's favorite, Zeppelin, too, played with an eagerness and joy that was contagious. I still think they'd be more effective-considering the limitation of much of their material-to cut an hour out of their set, thus shedding some of the excess. But the audience-even after two encores-seemed ready for more. The applause could still be heard from the hall as the limousines pulled onto the street after the show. "You can't pretend last night's concert was the greatest we've ever done, but there was something between us after that long gap that enabled us-in certain songs, where we really got hold of it-to go far beyond where we had been before," Plant said Saturday in New Orleans. Yes, he said, he had thought about not being able to return to the band. "I wouldn't have compromised. I couldn't have gone on a stage and sat on a stool all night. I've got to be able to move around. "As much as you can develop a wonderfully warm rapport with people, the natural thing is to watch someone's weak point, particularly when so much has been written about my foot. It would be just, 'Aw, look, he ain't doin' it right; he's slowed down.' And I just wouldn't have been able to take that. "I just kept kicking the foot down on the stage real hard last night to show myself I could do it. In fact, I paid the price. It got a little sore. But it'll come around. I'm just out of condition. "There are a few things I won't be able to do because of the foot. I can't play soccer because the contact could reinjure it. But it's not something to brood about. "After two more years off, there's nothing in the world I want to do more than get on that stage. If every night could be like last night, then I'll be overjoyed. I just can't wait." Zeppelin Song Book Led Zeppelin's opening-night song selection (subject to change on future dates): "The Song Remains the Same", "Sick Again", "Nobody's Fault but Mine", "In My Time of Dying", "Since I've Been Loving You", "No Quarter", "Ten Years Gone", "Battle of Evermore", "Going to California", "Black Country Woman", "Bron-y-ar", "Kashmir", "Moby Dick", "Dazed and Confused"(instrumental only), "Achilles Last Stand", "Stairway to Heaven". Encores: "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll". Copyright Los Angeles Times. There was a photo of Robert Plant from the Dallas show, taken by Neal Preston, accompanying the article...the caption said "ROBERT PLANT...a joyous return to concerts." Now, the most important thing I took from this article was for the first time since I started going to see Led Zeppelin in concert, I had advance notice of what the setlist would most likely be. Previously, I could only guess...sure concert warhorses like Stairway, Rock and Roll, and Dazed and Confused were a given, and I had a few bootlegs of older tours. But the 1977 tour was the first time I knew going in what was going to be played, and in what order...I knew the opening would be TSRTS and what the acoustic set would entail. I was ecstatic that "Achilles" and "Ten Years Gone" were in...but somewhat bummed that yet again, no "The Rover" or "When the Levee Breaks" or "Immigrant Song". I was intrigued by what was meant by "Dazed and Confused"(instrumental only)...would they only play the fast solo part? The whole song but with no lyrics? What the hell did that mean? I have a feeling Mike Millard also read this article, and that it helped him plan on when to make his tape swaps...if you listen to "Listen to This, Eddie", it is remarkable how perfect he timed his flips and didn't miss much music, considering it was the first night. Oh, and this wasn't the only Led Zeppelin item in the Los Angeles Times that day...in that day's Sports Section, in the Morning Briefing on Page 2, was this little curio: Los Angeles Times Tuesday April 5, 1977 Sports Section III Page 2: Morning Briefing This week's Stanley Cup first-round playoffs between the New York Islanders and the Chicago Black Hawks have sent none other than Bugs Bunny hippety-hopping out of the Islanders' home rink. The Nassau Coliseum had been leased to a Bugs Bunny Easter extravaganza Thursday night, when the second game of the best-of-three series is scheduled. The Islanders bought out the show. Thursday's game was supposed to have been played in Chicago, but the Black Hawks had a scheduling problem too: a Led Zeppelin rock concert. Apparently, that show must go on. Copyright Los Angeles Times.

Awesome! Thanks jabe...and thanks to conneyfogle.

Yes, it is jumping ahead, but since you asked... No, I didn't really have any thoughts of going up north to see them...I definitely didn't think about going to Tempe to see them. There were several factors why that was. One was the fact that I was now living in an entirely different situation than in 1973 when I went to see Led Zeppelin at Kezar. My dad was remarried(his third wife) and I had long ceased having any contact with my previous stepmother and her relatives/friends, including the ones that took me to that '73 Kezar show. Second, after the 1976 Who and 1977 Pink Floyd shows at Anaheim Stadium, I was developing a distaste for outdoor stadium shows. The sound was sometimes dodgy and totally reliant upon wind conditions. The crowds were oversized and overloaded on booze and drugs and it could be an unpleasant experience all-around. In fact, that May 7, 1977 Pink Floyd show might rank as one of the all-time worst concerts I've ever seen...it's in there with REM/Luscious Jackson@the Forum in 1995 and Marilyn Manson/Hole@the Forum in 1999. Ahhh, but I'm getting ahead of myself...I'll expound more on the dehumanizing effect that Pink Floyd Animals concert had when May 7 rolls around. Third was the fact that quite simply, Led Zeppelin was out of sight, out of mind. Remember they were on a long break after those LA Forum shows...Robert even made mention several times during the last show that the band was flying back to England. It was treated like the end of the tour. Unlike today, where you can check the internet for a band's tour dates, back then, very few outlets existed that carried the full itinerary of the Led Zeppelin tour. I wasn't a regular reader of Rolling Stone anymore and Creem and Circus would only post tour dates for that month's issue. Most newspapers were only interested in their own city, so once Led Zeppelin came and went, that was usually the end of it. By mid-July, there other things going on and I don't think I heard anything about the Oakland shows until the Times printed a small piece about the fight backstage. The fourth and last factor in my lack of interest going to the Oakland shows, was the simple fact that I was grounded that weekend...in fact, I'd been grounded that whole week. So even if I had kept up with the tour schedule and gotten tickets, I couldn't go anyway. Besides, nobody else I knew showed any interest in going to see Led Zeppelin in Oakland. We seemed to have had our Zeppelin lust sated by those Forum shows.

Thanks for the correction...it's very late in L.A. and I'm bleary-eyed. Cherie wasn't too skanky until later...and yes, Joan Jett was a close second or third. If you saw the Runaways back then and know anything about the band, then you know what a complete crock that Kristen Stewart movie was. Forget for a moment about whether Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart did justice to their roles as Cherie Curie and Joan Jett respectively(Dakota was okay, and Kristen Stewart's facial expressions and acting runs the gamut from a to a). What really irked me was how they treated Sandy West as a minor character in the band's story, when it was SHE who was the FOUNDING MEMBER of the band. Sandy was the one who met Kim Fowley first, and was given Joan Jett's phone number by him. Oh, and where was Jackie Fox? Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley is about the only reason to watch "The Runaways". A better bet is to pass on that Runaways movie and see the Runaways documentary "Edgeplay:A Film About the Runaways" instead..it was made by former Runaways bassist Vicki Blue, who succeeded Jackie Fox when she left then band during the 1977 Japanese tour. One of the disadvantages of posting at 3am is not having your faculties at their sharpest. Reading over my latest chapter, I noticed many things I wished I could edit or rewrite. Alas, it's too late as the "edit" button is no longer available for that post. But one thing I forgot that I am posting now is the ad for the Queen Lizzy tour.

Thanks for the correction...it's very late in L.A. and I'm bleary-eyed.

Post #11: APRIL FOOL'S DAY: A Day for Firsts Date: Friday April 1, 1977 Hello again...your prodigal narrator returns. I had some computer problems...lost some archival files...but I'll carry on the best I can. When last I left, Robert Plant had contracted tonsillitis and the 1977 Tour was postponed. All the Los Angeles dates were moved from March to June, which turned out to be a godsend as that made it possible to see more of the Forum concerts than I had originally anticipated. So now it's a month later, April Fools' Day to be exact, and here is where things stood. After consulting with my friend, our original tickets for March 12, which were now June 22 tix, were traded in for June 25, as my friend could only go on the weekend dates, as he had a family engagement during the week that he couldn't get out of. I had 3 June 25 tix that I now didn't need, so I swapped two of the tix for June 26 and 27 seats. The third ticket I swapped for a Pink Floyd ticket. They had just added a second Anaheim Stadium concert for Saturday May 7, which was perfect. I didn't mind skipping the June 22 Forum date, as I figured that would give me a day to recuperate. My schedule of Led Zeppelin shows was now set in stone: Tuesday June 21: LZ concert Wednesday June 22: rest Thursday June 23: LZ concert Friday June 24: rest Saturday June 25: LZ concert Sunday June 26: LZ concert Monday June 27: LZ concert Overkill? Maybe...some people found it excessive, and perhaps still do. All I know is that I had accomplished once again my quirky goal of getting tickets to one more Zeppelin concert than the previous tour. In 1972, I saw them twice; in 1973 three times; and so on until in 1977 I was up to 5 shows. Due to time and money constraints, there were only two concerts I saw in the month of March 1977, but they were both good ones. First up was the Queen/Thin Lizzy show at the Forum, March 3. This was either the second or third time I had seen both bands in concert, but having both on the bill together was a stroke of genius. At that point in time I was probably slightly more a fan of Thin Lizzy than Queen. Not that I didn't like Queen, but up to that point("Day at the Races" had just been released) I thought Queen's albums were uneven. In concert, while Queen was definitely a flamboyant and energetic band, there was something about the band's sound, and Brian May's guitar tone in particular, that came off sounding canned. But even so, when Queen was good("Tie Your Mother Down", "Death on Two Legs", "Somebody to Love") they were very good. I just wish they didn't have to rely on backing tapes for "Bohemian Rhapsody", and who knows what other songs. On the other hand, what a voice Freddie Mercury possessed! And what a performer...what a ham!!! I mean that in the best sense. Pretty good stage lighting for that era, too, if I recall. Thin Lizzy of course was incredible...they had one of the best twin-guitar attacks of all time. In fact, I'm not positive so I'll allow some Thin Lizzy expert to confirm, but I think that Gary Moore was in the band for this tour. By not being the headliner Thin Lizzy was also able to consolidate their setlist to 45 minutes of their best material. And what is there to say about the great Phil Lynott that hasn't been said already? He was the heart and soul of Thin Lizzy...a great songwriter and bass player/vocalist and a geniunely warm stage presence. What a unique talent and such a great loss when he died. I'll tell you one thing, that '77 Queen Lizzy tour was one of the best of the Seventies...they had the Forum rockin'! The other concert I saw that month was Boston/The Outlaws/Starcastle at Long Beach Arena Saturday March 19. This was one of those bills that were common in the 70s. Starcastle was one of those Yes-wannabe prog-lite bands that seemed to proliferate in the Midwest. Bands like Styx and Kansas. In fact, one of the highlights and side benefits of digging through my past like this has been rediscovering long-forgotten bands from days of yore. Of course, most of them were forgotten for good reasons. The Outlaws were the second band and they had about three albums under their belt, although none had the impact of their debut album, released in 1975. That was the album that had their best known songs: "There Goes Another Love Song" and "Green Grass and High Tides". As one review of the time put it, they were a harder-rocking Eagles/Poco or a more countrified Lynyrd Skynyrd. The best thing they had going for them was Hughie Thomasson on guitar. People were toking left and right during the Outlaws...I wasn't smoking, but I didn't need to. The Long Beach Arena was so thick with smokey haze that I probably got a contact high. By the time the band got to "Green Grass...", well, it was high times indeed. The smoking didn't let up for Boston, either. Now, I don't think much of what Boston became later on, but on that first album tour, I have to say they smoked!!! Even today, I still like much of that debut Boston album. Brad Delp had those crazy high vocals and Tom Scholze came up with that ear-candy guitar tone. That "Boston" album was a smash in 1976...radio played it to death, and having missed them in 1976, I was looking forward to finally checking them out in concert. I was not disappointed. What was incredible was how they recreated the guitar sound from the album. At times they had three guitars going at once, with Tom, Brad and Barry all wielding axes. The setlist was pretty much the first album. But I still recall the encore being a new song..."Television Politician". It didn't appear on "Don't Look Back", either. Don't know if it ever got released. "Foreplay/Longtime" was a highlight and "Smokin'" was...well, smokin'. If only they could have kept that creative spark they had for that first year or so, Boston could have been a decent band. But by the second album I was already beginning to lose interest and when they took a decade to make their third, I had long ceased to care. But man, that first album and tour...if you are old enough and lucky enough to have seen them then, you know what I mean. That brings me to April 1, 1977, where a couple of events of note and importance took place. Event number 1: The Runaways/Cheap Trick at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This was my FIRST TIME seeing both bands. Cheap Trick was a late add to the bill and I didn't know a thing about them. I think their first album might have just been released, but radio wasn't playing it...at least I didn't hear it on KMET, KLOS, or KWEST. But there had been a couple brief notices in the L.A. Times. That said, I was unprepared for how thoroughly wacky and enjoyable the band was in concert. What a bunch of characters, led by Rick Nielson, the Huntz Hall of the group. It was at this show I first heard "I Want You to Want Me", and even then, in the less-than-perfect acoustics of the Santa Monica Civic(basically a glorified gym), you could tell this was a perfect song for radio. Which made it puzzling why radio wasn't jumping all over this band. Not that other songs measured up to that one. After the concert, I went out and got the "Cheap Trick" album, and I found it very hit-and-miss. But I did make a note to keep an eye on them in the future. How can you not love a band where the drummer nonchalantly plays with a cigarette dangling from his lips? But the only reason I was at this concert to begin with was the headliners, The Runaways...the Queens of Noise! I had been wanting to see the Runaways for a year, ever since reading about them in the L.A. Times and then getting that first record and hearing "Cherry Bomb". The clincher was hearing Robert Plant was at one of the many L.A. appearances the Runaways made in 1976. For some reason, though, I could never seem to get it together to go to any of their 1976 shows, culminating with their New Year's Eve show at the Whisky with Van Halen opening!!! FUCK! Imagine the rock n roll deliciousness of that night! So when the Runaways announced the Santa Monica gig, I finally had a chance. It was not on a school night for one thing and money was no problem, as I could swap one of my extra Zep tickets for the show. "Queens of Noise" had been out for a couple months and I was fully primed to see these girls rock! I was a couple of months away from turning 15, and I thought it incredible, if not impossible, that girls only a couple years older than me were headlining concerts. That was one of the benefits of the punk rock era...you could actually see bands with members that were in your age group. Before punk, it sometimes seemed as if rock was only for an elite few...mostly male, and mostly older. The audience was closer to our age group, too. Save for the odd older pedophile types there to ogle the girls. Speaking of ogling, by then I had already determined that Jackie Fox was the Runaway I most wanted to sleep with...followed by Cherie Curie. But once the band took the stage, those thoughts left my head and I just reveled in the high energy racket they were making...Queens of Noise, indeed! This wasn't music that was deep or polished. But it hit you hard in the glands and made your juices flow; it was fun. Much like the Ramones. And like the Ramones, it was over before you knew it. Finally, on the same night I was attending the Runaways/Cheap Trick gig, a few hours earlier in Dallas, Texas, a momentous occasion took place. Event Number 2: Led Zeppelin plays the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, TX. The FIRST concert of the 1977 tour! After delay upon delay, postponement after postponement...after a 2 year wait, Led Zeppelin was finally back on the road and playing live on a stage. The 1977 U.S. Tour had at last commenced. Contrary to what the earlier article in the Times announced, it wasn't in Toronto but Dallas that the tour started. No matter...as long as it started somewhere. Being that it was April Fools' Day, I kept fearing that another announcement would come to dash our hopes. Plant would get sick again, or Page would strain a finger. Or Jones would crack under the strain and leave the band to become a professional backgammon player. Fortunately, no such announcement came. The tour was underway. There were now 81 days to wait until the tour hit Los Angeles.

After nearly two years away, the return of "MAD MEN"!!! Season 5 premiere tonight on AMC. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/entertainment/la-et-mad-men-review-20120323 http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-mad-women-book-20120323,0,7307911.story

I find the whole show to be off, not just from the drum solo onwards. Jimmy's solo in TSRTS is anemic and IMTOD sounds slow and leaden...Bonzo's fills and timing seem off. Nothing realy gels for any length of time. Just when you think they'll get it together, something happens for it to all fall apart again. Definitely not one for the highlight-reel.

Thanks Kate. They sounded great...they're all 15-17. The group was 20 in number. The Clippers won the game, too...beating the Atlanta Hawks. Having trouble uploading the video from my phone to youtube or to here, however. What I am happy about tonight is after the outstanding concert I went to last night(of Montreal & Deerhoof), and not getting to bed until 3am, I proceeded to sleep and sleep and sleep...and just to be sure, sleep some more. I didn't up til almost 8pm tonight; nearly 17 hours of beautiful, continuous, deep sleep. Man, I slept so long I had three different dreams! Then, upon waking up, I had one of those immensely satisfying pisses, where you just stand there for a minute and go "ahhhhhhhhh".

You're in for a good time, then!

I did a double-take when I saw the name Bill Evans(he's dead!) until I realized it was a different Bill Evans than the late great jazz pianist. That must have been one hell of a jam session last night.