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Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience (Tour)

SteveAJones

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bigzepfan

bigzepfan

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OMG crazy show tonite. After the first set everyone just stood right in front of the stage. Thought security would come and

say something but instead about a hundred people moved up and we stayed there the whole show. Front row again!

Told their tour manager about my adventures in London and she arranged for me to do the meet and greet with the band after the show.

Very very cool to meet Jason and the band. Only spoke to Jason breifly, but with Tony and Stephen for quite awhile. James also for a minute or two.

I got them to autograph my tix from tonight and last night and Jason autographed my 02 ticket stub(SWEET). Didn't get to meet michael devlin

who tore up whole lotta love tonight with a passion. I was truly blown away by him during that tune.

Jason said that the band has looked at the 02 footage and you never know. At least they've looked at it is what the man said and that's all good to me.

It all starts there. may never happen - and according to some of the more in the know folks around here it never will - but I must keep the faith.

If you like last night's vids tonight are going to be unbeleivable I can absolutely promise but too tired to deal with it tonight.

anyone goiing to philly tomorrow have an awesome time. This show will blow you away!

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SteveAJones

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“When the album ‘Duke’ came out, by Genesis, Phil Collins beat Dad in a drummers poll,” he says. “My dad got me to learn ‘Turn It On Again’ by Genesis. I’d play it, and he’d go, ‘Do it again,’ until I got it right. I’d play it until I nailed it, and then he went, ‘I don’t see what the big deal is. My 12-year-old son could play that song.’ ”

ROTFLMAO :hysterical:

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SteveAJones

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Jason Bonham carries on Led Zep legacy

By Alex Biese

Asbury Park Press Staff Writer

November 3, 2010

Jason Bonham is returning to his musical roots. Bonham, the son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, is on the road with "Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience," a crowd-pleasing tribute show featuring some of the band's most timeless numbers and plenty of Bonham family memories.

The tour, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of John Bonham's death on Sept. 25, 1980, will be coming to our area for shows Wednesday (Nov. 3) at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank and Thursday (Nov. 4) at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood."I wanted to make sure that this tour was just a really comfortable, fun thing to go and do, to celebrate and remember my father and to just go out and play," Bonham said.

With Annerin Productions the company behind "The Pink Floyd Experience" and "Rain, a Tribute to the Beatles" Bonham has crafted a show which features him behind the drum kit leading a stellar band through a number of Led Zeppelin classics while also presenting the audience with home movies and photos telling his personal story.

Discussing his history with the drums, Bonham said, "There's a clip in the show that I play and I have no memory of it whatsoever, that's how old it is. I've got no front teeth I've got to be four, I can't be any older than four and the weirdest thing is I don't remember being taught (to play the drums), I just remember being able to play and then dad would say, "Oh, try this,' or "try that."'

In 2007, Bonham took his father's place behind the drums when the surviving members of Led Zeppelin - Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - reunited for an acclaimed show at the 02 Arena in London. Discussing what he learned from that experience, Bonham said, "It taught me not to look for approval after everything I did, it taught me my approval alone was to be in the room playing with them, to be considered good enough to go out there and do it with them and represent them as much as my father."

And is the door still open to the possibility of him playing with Plant, Page and Jones again? "Well, as far as my end, if there's two doors dividing a room, my door is always open, put it that way," Bonham said. "I don't know how they feel about all working together again with me that's something that only time will tell but we did have such a good time. I had a great time working with Jimmy and John Paul for the few times we got together in 2008, so who knows?

"If you'd said to me five years ago that I was going to play drums in Led Zeppelin, I would have said you were crazy, but I did and it was a great night. For me, it was one of the highlights of my life. It will be there forever. It was a fantastic night, not only for me but I think for them too, they had a great time and they played fantastically well."

After a lifetime of immersing himself in the music of Led Zeppelin, one wonders which of his father's drum parts still present Bonham with a challenge."I think they're all challenging in some ways," he said. "The hardest challenge is probably (not) the technical ability; it's finding the groove or the pocket, you know what I mean? I know a lot of brilliantly great technician drummers who can do (it) with dad's chops, but it doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound the same, because there's a certain swagger."

Discussing his approach to his father's work on his current tour, Bonham said, "Sometimes I like to try and get away and try to think, "What would he do now live?' Because no two nights would be the same, would he like to do this? Would he do that?

"So I've started to put drum fills in like what he did in "Presence' (1976) into "Led Zeppelin II' (1969), so some of the things he'd progressed to later on, I would then put them into the start of his career, which has been fun. To do that, that's kind of fun and cool, to do some of these key drum fills he did later on in his life, put them in the earlier stuff, it's kind of a fun approach because you're still playing like John Bonham but if you know what I mean it's John Bonham with a time machine".

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SteveAJones

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Music: With each drumbeat from Jason Bonham, a hereditary echo of Led Zeppelin

By JONATHAN TAKIFF

Philadelphia Daily News

Fri, Nov. 5, 2010

WHAT SERVES a legend best?

Arguably, it's an offspring like Jason Bonham, who's made it his mission to carry on in the resounding tradition of his long-gone dad John Bonham - to many minds the greatest rock 'n' roll drummer of all time and a talent still celebrated through his enduring work with Led Zeppelin.

In Jason Bonham's drumming with other bands - of late, the grand and gritty, blues-rocking Black Country Communion he shares with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, singer/bassist Glenn Hughes and keyboardist Derek Sherinian - Bonham has "intentionally gone for a heavy, Led Zeppelin kind of sound, taking all the padding out of the drums, driving the sound man mad. How could I do otherwise?" he shared recently, with a laugh.

The younger Bonham also lived, for a while, the life of wretched excess that earned his father the clownish nickname "Bonzo," including "trashing hotel rooms and throwing the TV sets out the windows.

"Until, that is, my manager reminded me that dad was making millions at the time and I was making hundreds," remembers the now "nine years sober" family man.

In those ultrarare couple of instances where surviving members of Led Zeppelin have deigned to regroup for a special occasion - most recently a December 2007 concert in London to honor the passing of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun - it's been Jason Bonham who's manned the drum kit and, in front singer Robert Plant's words, proven "the hero of the night."

This year, to mark the 30th anniversary of his father's demise, Jason Bonham finally bit at the offer, "dangled several times before," to go out with a multimedia tribute show, limited (appropriately) to just 30 performances.

Playing here tomorrow at the Merriam Theater, Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience boasts, he promised, "first-class" sound, lights and rear-screen projections (including family home movies) with a band that evokes the sound of vintage Zeppelin live.

"Big, booming, echo-y and dirty," enthused Minneapolis show reviewer Jon Bream. "The band was loose, even a little sloppy - like Led Zeppelin was. 'Black Dog' sounded like a blast from the '70s. 'When the Levee Breaks' had a great strutting groove. 'Kashmir' was a psychedelic stomp. And 'Whole Lotta Love' was imperfect, frantic, feedback-drenched fun. . . . As for drummer/bandleader Bonham, 44, he was a percussive force, and his duets with his dad on film were suitably sentimental yet musically rewarding."

Jason Bonham admitted that he approached this project with trepidation. First off, he needed assurance the production would be "tastefully done . . . wouldn't look tacky, wouldn't stomp on the family name."

The show is backed by the same company that tours "The Pink Floyd Experience" and "Rain - A Tribute to the Beatles," which is playing on Broadway. "I loved 'Rain' and its take on the Beatles," Bonham said. "That was the convincer, the way they used a timeline and newsreel to create a mood, and crafted set changes throughout. We worked some variations on the theme for this show, including some impromptu things I came up with."

OK, but how would the surviving members of Zeppelin feel about him going out with a bunch of interlopers - guitarist Tony Catania, vocalist James Dylan, bassist Michael Devin and keyboardist/pedal steel guitarist Stephen LeBlanc?

And, um, what about the fans?

Jason got his first answer from Robert Plant when they were paired as guests on a Miami radio show (both guys plugging their respective new albums) "and the DJ tried to throw me under the bus," Bonham recalled. "He said to Robert, 'So what's this about Jason touring with a Led Zeppelin show without you participating.'

"And Robert said, 'Jason can do whatever he wants and has my blessing as long as he does it with a smile on his face. No other drummer can play like Jason. He's doing his father proud.' And that was, for me, one of the nicest things he's ever done."

As for the fan response, Bonham allowed it's "been beyond incredible. One of the most emotional things was meeting fans who'd bought tickets for the Chicago Led Zeppelin show, for the tour that didn't happen."

His 30-year-old dad died abruptly from an alcohol binge on Sept. 25, 1980, and the band threw in the towel. Jason was 14 at the time.

"These fans at our show were breaking into tears," Jason said. "I'm their closure. It's as close to Led Zeppelin as it gets."

While not yet formally announced, Bonham "feels" an official video of the (much-bootlegged) Led Zeppelin reunion for Ertegun "will come out, I believe." Ticket requests for the show (held at London's 20,000-seat O2 Arena) numbered more than a million. And arguably, if the blokes were willing to do a full-blown tour, it would be the hottest ticket of all time.

But getting over the internal strife . . .

"I always say if they ever decided to do it, if there was the slightest chance, my door is always open and they know my number," Jason said. "I had a great year with Jimmy

and Jonesy [John Paul Jones] writing songs after we did the [Ertegun] show. That didn't work out, but I'm so close to my dad when I'm with them. I feel really content.

"They were my dad's buddies, so it's the closest thing I've got to him. But getting them all together to do more than a one-off? That would be like getting [warring Pink Floyd principals] Roger Waters to French kiss Dave Gilmour and then get married in Boston.

"Still, if somebody had said five years ago 'You'll play with Led Zeppelin,' I'd have laughed. So who knows?" Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience, Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St., 8 p.m. tomorrow, $49.50, 215-893-1999,

www.kimmelcenter.org.

http://www.philly.co...d_Zeppelin.html

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kiss of fire

kiss of fire

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Yes. Thanks for posting and sharing. :)

R B)

Your quite welcome reids and Deborah J.

For some reason it has been pulled off the BackstageAxxess site but Blabbermouth still has it so I would say watch it quick before it goes away.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=149001

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zeplives66

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I was at the show last night in NYC and I kinda walked away with mixed feelings. i was expecting more of a story/tribute about his father and his rise to fame with Led Zeppelin. They didnt show any rare video's/pics of Bonzo and his bandmates/friends of the band and that is what probably what dissapointed me the most. Did anyone else feel this way? To me it was more of a Jason Bonham cover band trying to mimic the music of Led Zeppelin and trying to be Led Zeppelin. I dont know i guess my approach would have been different, as a fan i would have liked to have seen a celebration of the life of Bonzo and all the lives he touched with his music. He didnt have to play just Led Zeppelin's music and they should have touched and played some of the music that influenced Bonzo's playing and how his style of drumming was created. So to take all of this into account i guess i have to take it for what it was. The setlist was fantastic and once the engineers adjusted the sound properly the band really got going and took off into some really good numbers like Thank You, Babe Im Gonna Leave You and Im Gonna Crawl. Some of my favs were How many More Times, The Lemon Song, Your Time Is Gonna Come. Obviously and rightfully so the piece of the night was Moby Dick. Great job! Song after song though, the guitarist to me really stood out above the rest of the band. To my surprise, he was from Long Island New York which is where i am from. Overall i enjoyed it, just thought it could have been and should have been so much more. My highlight was definately when he showed his dad on the video screen making a funny face and having a laugh and looked liked he was smiling down at his son from Heaven. That was very touching and i am sure Bonzo is very proud of his son for carrying the torch of his legacy as one the most exciting and world's greatest drummers to ever hit the stage. Something in my gut stills tells me that the greatest tribute has still yet to come.

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horrorshow

horrorshow

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I was at the show last night in NYC and I kinda walked away with mixed feelings. i was expecting more of a story/tribute about his father and his rise to fame with Led Zeppelin. They didnt show any rare video's/pics of Bonzo and his bandmates/friends of the band and that is what probably what dissapointed me the most. Did anyone else feel this way? To me it was more of a Jason Bonham cover band trying to mimic the music of Led Zeppelin and trying to be Led Zeppelin. I dont know i guess my approach would have been different, as a fan i would have liked to have seen a celebration of the life of Bonzo and all the lives he touched with his music. He didnt have to play just Led Zeppelin's music and they should have touched and played some of the music that influenced Bonzo's playing and how his style of drumming was created. So to take all of this into account i guess i have to take it for what it was. The setlist was fantastic and once the engineers adjusted the sound properly the band really got going and took off into some really good numbers like Thank You, Babe Im Gonna Leave You and Im Gonna Crawl. Some of my favs were How many More Times, The Lemon Song, Your Time Is Gonna Come. Obviously and rightfully so the piece of the night was Moby Dick. Great job! Song after song though, the guitarist to me really stood out above the rest of the band. To my surprise, he was from Long Island New York which is where i am from. Overall i enjoyed it, just thought it could have been and should have been so much more. My highlight was definately when he showed his dad on the video screen making a funny face and having a laugh and looked liked he was smiling down at his son from Heaven. That was very touching and i am sure Bonzo is very proud of his son for carrying the torch of his legacy as one the most exciting and world's greatest drummers to ever hit the stage. Something in my gut stills tells me that the greatest tribute has still yet to come.

I was at the show last night, and I absolutely agree with you. Fellow Long Islander Tony Catania was amazing. Now is it just me...or does Tony look a lot like "Sal" (John Cazale) from the film DOG DAY AFTERNOON????

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SteveAJones

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Zep Cover Group Not a 'Led'-down"

By DAN AQUILANTE

November 9, 2010

ROCK REVIEW

JASON BONHAM'S LED ZEPPELIN EXPERIENCE

Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's wailing lead singer, rejected a reported $200 million offer earlier this year for Zep to fly again on a world tour. (The band played a successful one-off reunion concert at London's O2 Arena in December 2007.)

So when a show tagged "Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience" rumbled into the Best Buy Theater Monday night, you had to figure this was as close as fans would get to the actual Led Zeppelin -- Bonham, the son of the band's late drummer John Bonham, pounded the skins for the band in that London show.

No, it wasn't as good as seeing and hearing Zeppelin, but it wasn't bad, or cheesy.

20101108001ZandyMangold.jpg

Zandy Mangold

Jason Bonham, the son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham,

preserved the sound of his dad's legendary band.

As far as knockoff rock goes, this band was exceptionally true to the original studio versions of songs during a two-hour performance. The group was right-on during the show opener, "Rock 'n' Roll," the blues-fused "The Lemon Song," the trippy "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta Love," which was saved for the encore.

What made this different from a Las Vegas-y tribute band is that none of the five musicians attempted to look or dress like the original members of Led Zeppelin. Any likeness between the originals and the simulation band was drawn aurally. And, of course, there's the one-degree-of-separation with Zeppelin because of 44-year-old Jason Bonham.

As for Plant's unique vocal style, Bonham praised singer James Dylan for his work, and joked, "I found James online, proving there's more than porn on the Internet." That got him a laugh.

The "experience" part of the Led Zeppelin Experience was injected with home-movie snippets from Bonham's childhood with his dad, as well as by a heart-tugging narrative by Bonham, who obviously idolizes his pop even more than the fanatical fans.

One of the more clever uses of old film footage had Bonham the elder playing the beautiful Zep tune "Moby Dick" as Jason did a whack-for-whack version live. More of that kind of multimedia treatment would have enhanced the gig.

http://www.nypost.co...=#ixzz14rcNcXe3

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