Booooooooooooo!

Turns out it wasn't such a bad thing that I had to work tonight after all...saved me the agony of watching USC lose to Stanford and blow any chance they had of playing in the National Championship. Not to mention the Angels losing again. Sorry about your VA teams, Virginia.

Okay, playtime is over. We've had the hors d'oeuvres, now it's time for the entrée. #2 USC @ #21 Stanford today at 4:30pm. Stanford has beaten us three straight. Time for revenge.

Aaaaaaiiiiiioooooooiiiiiiieeeeeewaaaaahhhhhh!!!! (runs screaming from the room...)

SHIT! Somehow I just knew there would be complications. I just checked the concert calendar and discovered to my dismay that Oct. 17 is the same night as the Neil Young & Crazy Horse/Los Lobos show at the Hollywood Bowl. Agony! Decisions, decisions. If it was just Neil on one of his solo tours, the decision would be easy...Led Zep film hands down. Even if the date of the film release was a week later on the same day as the Bob Dylan concert, I would have no trouble choosing the Zep film over Dylan and his 'box of frogs, sandpaper and razor blades' voice. But Neil Young AND Crazy Horse is another matter. Since they rarely tour, I always make sure I see them when they do...they never disappoint. So as much as I was looking forward to seeing Celebration Day in a theatre(I was even going to get tix for both the 7pm and 10pm screenings and see it twice back-to-back), a LIVE concert in-the-flesh still takes precedence over a filmed concert, no matter how awesome. My only hope now is that more dates are added(I read that someone got tix for an Oct. 22 screening? Is this true?) or that I am fortunate enough to score tix for the LA Premiere. Grrrrrrrr! Damn LA and its crowded entertainment calendar.

Too bad. They need to time-travel their sorry asses back to when Charlton Heston was still alive as he was in the only good "Planet of the Apes" movies. No Charlton Heston, no dice. They need to stop remaking and rehashing classics they have no hope of equalling. Waste of time.

Lodi? Really? That's pretty cool. One of my favourite CCR songs.

Well it'll have to remain in your imagination. In all the times I saw the Johnny Carson show I don't recall a single Led Zeppelin mention.

Word. On my way home from the Fiona Apple concert and have the Sept.14, 1971 Berkeley show blasting! I'm listening to the recent Godfatherecords release "Berkeley Daze 2nd Night". Not only is this one of the best audience tapes of 1971, it is one of the best-sounding audience tapes ever. Up there in the all-time Top 10, along with Mike Millard's tapes and the July 24, 1979 Copenhagen audience tape. Of course, it's not just the sound quality of the tape that makes this show special...the performance quality is off the charts! 1971 was a spectacular year performance-wise for the band and 9-14-71 is one of those dates that go above and beyond the performance norm. It is a date that should be seared in every Led Zeppelin fan's memory. There should be a plaque commemorating the event in Berkeley. Too bad the taper was paranoid...and somewhat incompetent. "Since I've Been Loving You" was the third song in the set, early enough so that a taper shouldn't have to worry about flipping his tape over. Yet for some reason there is a gap in the intro solo to SIBLY, which is a shame as this SIBLY is one of the best ever. And one can only speculate how blazing "Celebration Day" and "Thank You" might have sounded on this night. CD was a consistent highlight of the 1971 setlists, so its a shame we'll never hear it from this night.

Trust me Rover, if that widget had worked for me I wouldn't have bothered posting the question. I'm not one for superfluous posts. But I'm getting strange conflicting results...and that goes for the movieticket.com search link, too. So far, publicenemy and I have found a Rave 18 in West LA, a Rave 15 in Baldwin Hills, and a theatre in Thousand Oaks that are showing the movie. Yet only the Rave in Baldwin Hills shows up in my zipcode search. Nothing shows up when I punch in various Orange County zipcodes...which is odd, considering San Diego has 5. It's probable that more theatres are being confirmed and added as we speak, so a fuller picture will emerge next week of all the locations.

To publicenemy3, badgeholder, or any other Los Angeles/Southern California folk: Have you had any luck finding a theatre in Orange County that is screening Celebration Day? It looks like I'll probably go to the Rave 18 in LA but I want to make sure there isn't a better option.

The Bonham family always did have perfect timing! Congratulations on the bouncing baby girl!

Actually it was the ESPN article that brought me here last night. I was checking the scores thru my ESPN app and that's when I noticed the Tom Sims obituary. I came here to post the news and saw that you had already done so...that's why my post above says 'Edited'; I had to remove the ESPN link after I figured out that you had already posted the same link in a more graphically appealing fashion. I bought my first snowboard in 1982. I had been seeing ads for snowboards for years in the surfing and skateboarding magazines I read, but being an Orange County beach kid growing up, I never had the opportunity to learn how to ski, let alone snowboard. Then, in the first year and a half of my Army stint, I was stationed at Ft. Hood, TX...no skiing there! But when I got the word I would be finishing my four years in the Army in Nürnberg, Germany, my initial dismay at not getting my first chice of being stationed in Hawaii turned to elation as I realized that Nürnberg's proximity to the Alps would provide me with the opportunity to learn to ski and snowboard. About a month before I left Ft. Hood for Germany(I had a week's leave at home first), I placed an order for a Jake Burton snowboard. It was old school, with foot bindings and three metal 'fins' underneath, just like a surfboard with three fins(which were all the rage back then). I think that may have been part of the reason I chose the Burton board over the Sims; it looked like a surfboard for snow, so there was an element of familiarity about it. My board safely arrived from Vermont in time for my trip to Germany, I must have looked crazy to the Brits and Germans as I first went through Heathrow and then Frankfurt en route to Nürnberg with my surfboard, skateboard and snowboard as part of my luggage. Most of my army compatriots didn't know what to make of me, at first...I was the only Southern California kid in my unit. Most of the guys were from places like Mead, PA or Flint, MI or Surprise, NY or Tulsa, OK. Army duties being what they are, it wasn't until the winter of 1983 that I got to put my snowboard to use. The Army had put together this 10 day package tour for $150 per person. That would include daily ski lessons and equipment rentals, unlimited lift usage, room and meals...all down at beautiful Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It was a no-brainer! I would finally learn to ski and then get to break out my snowboard. Frankly I was surprised more GI's didn't take advantage of the offer. All told there were probably around 20 guys and girls on the trip. What a great 10 days that was! What a great surprise, too, to get down there and find that the two girls in charge of giving us our ski gear were UCLA students! Anyway, back to the point... The routine was you'd get up in the morning and after breakfast, you'd get your skis, poles, boots, etc. and go to your lesson(there were three lesson groups for beginner, intermediate, and advance...I was beginner, natch) and that would last until noon. Then the rest of the day was yours to ski or do whatever you want. I spent the first few days just skiing...to my surprise, this beach bum took to skiing like a duck to water. I started wishing I had made the effort to learn to ski earlier. When I felt I was becomming proficient enough...graduating from snow-plow turns to parallel turns...I decided it was time to break out the snowboard. Haha! What a comedy that was. Being a surfer and skateboarder, I thought it would be no sweat, a piece of cake. What I wasn't prepared for was 1) how difficult it would be using the T-bar lifts with my snowboard; and 2) how clumsily and sluggish my board felt in the snow. It was definitely a trial-and-error process and I must have provided much mirth for my fellow skiers. It didn't help that I was the ONLY one with a snowboard out there and I was looked upon as an alien. The climate for snowboarding was far different then than it is now...there were no special runs designed for snowboarders, no halfpipes or rails to grind. There were some times I got so frustrated with the T-bar, I just said 'fuck it' and climbed up to the top of the run. But eventually, as I got used to what the board could and couldn't do(I thought I would immediately be pulling off aerials), I began to enjoy myself more and more. I still found myself spending more time skiing than snowboarding on the trip. Oh, and as an added bonus, on a day trip to visit the Schloss Neuschwanstein(inspiration for the Castle at Disneyland), I discovered a hang-gliding school nearby and made arrangements to take lessons. So while in Germany I learned to ski, snowboard and hang glide...that's one reason Deutschland will always have a piece of my heart. After the 10-day vacation was over, I took my Burton snowboard out for a few more times in the snow. But something kept nagging me that I wasn't getting optimum performance. One day looking through the latest Surfer magazine, I noticed that the Sims boards in the ads didn't have metal rods or 'fins' underneath. They were sleek and smooth with a slightly concave surface. In other words, instead of looking like a surfboard, it looked more like a ski...just wider. My limited grasp of physics told me this might make all the difference in the world. I mailed out an order that very day. By the time I got my Sims board, spring was already in bloom and I would have to wait until later in the year before trying it out. But when I finally did, I could immediately feel a difference in the way the Sims board handled compared to the Burton...the way it took to the snow was like night and day. Of course, I think it was within a year that I noticed that all the other snowboard manufacturers, Burton included, started phasing out the 'fins' and copying the Sims style. I started seeing a few more snowboarders pop up at the various European ski resorts I visited, too. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to have fun with and feel like you were part of some rebel group. When my Army hitch was finally over and I returned to Southern California, the difference was striking...there was a large amount of snowboarders in the LA ski resorts. By the late-80s I would estimate Big Bear and Mountain High would be split 50/50 between skiers and snowboarders. There was some beefing and resentment from skiers, but the smart ski resorts realized that for the sake of their financial future, they had better start recognizing the snowboarders and develop special runs for them. It wouldn't be long before you started having Winter X games and snowboarding in the Olympics. That's part of the legacy of Tom Sims.

Can't recall if HTWWW did, but the BBC Sessions did come out on vinyl eventually. Perhaps the O2 will, too.

Oh dear...I'm sorry to hear this. I'll be in touch.

Hi stevo, apparently something was lost in translation in your post. There's no there there.

You couldn't escape the name and influence of Tom Sims growing up in Southern California in the 1970s. Although I never owned a Sims skateboard, I did ride Sims snowboards after first starting out with a Burton snowboard. A pioneer and legend. R.I.P. Tom Sims.

Actually, history will prove you wrong. My bootleg of the O2 concert runs just over 2 hrs 6 minutes. The run time of the official release is 2 hrs and 4 mins. So Jimmy has obviously NOT scrapped "Dazed and Confused". About the mess up at the end of D & C, here's what I posted after just listening to the O2 show a couple of times:

^^^ Yes, it was noticed and bantered about yesterday.

I like it so much that I've made it my wallpaper today! Love the River Thames and the Bridges and the House of Parliament with the search lights in the background of the Airship. Love the reds and oranges. But hey, you don't like it, then I suppose you can make your own artwork. Something suitably moody for you.

A fleet of Zeppelins!!! Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III...hahaha.

I don't mind going to Crenshaw at night...just not to a run-down theatre. I don't want the latest Tylet Perry Madea schlockfest interrupting my Led Zeppelin...the sound-bleed at those theatres was notorious. You'd hear explosions from movies two theatres down from you. Hopefully they have been upgraded since then. I've just been on the phone for nearly an hour trying to track down other locales. The Landmark's in LA aren't carrying it, but I did call the Rave 18 in West LA near the 405. They are showing it but tickets don't go on sale until Friday. Still, that is preferable to either the Thousand Oaks or Crenshaw theatres. Now I just have to find out about the LA premiere.

Thanks Rover for this article! I can't tell you how many times as a kid living in Orange County we would drive by those giant hangers nearly every day. I was always fascinated and it was an added thrill when you could actually see one of the blimps inside or nearby. Those hangers are an Orange County landmark and I hope they don't ever disappear like some other OC landmarks have.

Yes, Knebby, there were screenings for the 2003 DVD in the US. Mstork must have missed them. Kind of bizarre that the only listing I can find for the Los Angeles area is the Rave Baldwin Hills Crenahaw Plaza. Yes, it's not too far from the Forum of Inglewood, the spiritual Los Angeles home of Led Zeppelin. But demographically, it's not an optimum locale to maximize box office. Though, with only two screenings, I'm sure it will still sell out. Still, the last time I went to see a movie at the Crenshaw Plaza, I was disappointed in the poor projection and the shoddy sound. Very surprised the Arclight or the Landmark Theatres at the Westside Pavilion didn't get this.

Okay, technically the Angels weren't swept...yet. I forgot it was a FOUR-game series. But Oakland has won the first THREE games(Mon-Tues-Wed) so it feels like a sweep.