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Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience (Tour)


SteveAJones

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Another amazing show last night. Completely sold out and every fan there knew one thing. These guys love what they do. It's so obvious when U see how

they smile so much from accomplishing that difficult polished rift or from the huge standing ovations the band receives after so many songs. I spoke with each bandmember after

the show and they look forward to each and every show. For them I don't think it's like a job - it's more like fun..and at the same time being able to pay tribute to the greatest rock and roll band of alltime.

A few surprises: Michael Devin joined them on harmonica for "When the Levee Breaks".

They unfortunately dropped Achilles from the setlist. In the Light is still on!

gotta run and get ready for the whitesnake show tonight!!!

Rock On my Zeppelin Friends!!!

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Both band and audience had a great time in sold-out Ottawa last night.

They brought the house down to be sure.

Didnt get In the Light or Achilles, but was a fullsome and satisfying set nonetheless.

If a full review is written, I will post it here.

A few clips from the show, apologies for inconsistent quality,

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^ ^ ^

Thanks Dave for posting this- nice to relive a moment from the show the other night!

I am soooo glad I finally got to see JBLZE- it really is an awesome show! Jason picked a great group of guys to do this with. I loved everything about it, from the old home movie footage (the one where little Jason is wiggling his butt to the music while his mom & dad were watching was too funny), to the "duet" on Moby Dick, and the performance of the band as a whole was excellent as well.

Thank you Jason, for putting together this wonderful tribute to your Dad!

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I just found out I have this Thursday off so I went ahead and got a ticket for this weeks Harrah's show in Northern KC. Excited to say the least, then I see Bonham with BCC in a month in St. Louis!

Edited by Flyingzepp
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I just found out I have this Thursday off so I went ahead and got a ticket for this weeks Harrah's show in Northern KC. Excited to say the least, then I see Bonham with BCC in a month in St. Louis!

Sweet! Coming soon is FrontRowDave.com where The Fans Create Music History. Upload photos/reviews/video, etc. to the history of that show and any others!

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From father to son: Jason Bonham's Zeppelin tribute

By Jeff Miers

News Pop Music Critic

Published: May 5, 2011

In the recently published Rolling Stone special edition "The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time," Nirvana/Foo Fighters icon Dave Grohl handles the entry for the mighty Led Zeppelin. "Heavy metal would not exist without Led Zeppelin," writes Grohl."And if it did, it would suck."

There's wisdom in this punch line, of course. Zeppelin crafted the blueprint for hard rock, certainly. But the band did so much more.

In fact, its music can't be qualified as "heavy metal," per se. This is too reductive of a description, for the group made progressive music that was as influenced by folk, classical, psychedelic, and what we now off-handedly refer to as "world music," as it was by hard blues. Which may explain why generation after generation continues to find relevance, resonance and power in Zeppelin's music. Much more so, in fact, than that same group of listeners might find in the music of the band that actually did invent heavy metal -- Black Sabbath.

*******************

WHAT: Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Monday

WHERE: Unversity at Buffalo Center for the Arts, Mainstage Theatre, North Campus, Amherst

TICKETS: $31.50-$41.50 (box office, Ticketmaster)

INFO: 645-ARTS, www.ubcfa.org

***********************

On Monday, a second-generation Led Zeppelin fan will lead his "tribute act" through a program of Led Zeppelin music inside the University at Buffalo's Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre. This particular Zeppelin devotee has a unique angle on the music of the evergreen band, however. His father was the drummer.

"Well, one thing I kind of give it is that I've actually played with the band a couple of times, and had some moments of authenticity," understates Jason Bonham, son of the late John Bonham, and leader of Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience. During a conference call interview last week, Bonham inevitably had to field a number of questions of the "What makes your Zeppelin tribute different than the hundreds of other Zeppelin tributes out there?" He handled such queries with a patient and graceful demeanor. The fact that, when Zeppelin reformed in 2007 for its only full-fledged gig since Jason's dad died in 1980, he was the man "filling in" for the drummer many feel to be the greatest in rock music history -- well, that pretty much shuts down any potential naysaying.

Bonham has had to deal with the occasional potshot, though, ever since he announced his intentions to form a band specifically to perform the repertoire of Zeppelin. The 2010 maiden jaunt by the JBLZE was meant to be a one-off, but fervent fan and (for the most part positive) critical reception urged him to take the idea further. Seeing a production of "Rain," the eminently classy Beatles tribute show, convinced Bonham that, by incorporating home video, spoken recollections and a tour de force moment when -- through the miracle of synchronized video and audio -- he performs alongside his father, he could "do Zeppelin" like no one else.

Still, the doubts linger.

"I remember thinking, I don't like this. I just want to be liked. I don't want to be disliked," recalled Bonham, refering to the sometimes nasty discourse propagated by Zeppelin loyalists in the wake of his first JBLZE tour. "I hate the haters, but honestly, you're going to get them no matter what you decide to do."

Without his father to turn to, Bonham sought the counsel of a higher power.

"I actually called Robert [Plant, Zeppelin vocalist] and spoke to him about it. Robert told me not to be concerned. We went on a [radio] interview together and then a DJ tried to throw me under the bus, saying [to Plant] 'Hey, what did you think about Jason doing a Led Zeppelin tour without any of you guys'? Robert turned around and went on the defensive for me and said, 'Well, Jason can do whatever he wants, when he wants. Jason plays these songs like nobody else. There's a few people that think they can play them like him, but nobody can, and they know who they are. As long as Jason does this with a smile, he has my blessing.'

"That was a big step for me when Robert came in there and said, 'You know what? This is Jason representing his family and his father. Just let him be.'"

Bonham is joined in JBLZE by veteran musicians deeply familiar with the Zeppelin material, and one relatively new face in the form of singer James Dylan, whom Bonham discovered covering Zeppelin tunes on YouTube. "He's fantastic," enthuses Bonham, after noting that Dylan's physical dissimilarity to Plant was a plus as well, since that did away with the idea of this being "some sort of silly dress-up thing."

Bonham drew mainly from the most familiar aspects of the Zeppelin catalog for the 2010 tour, but this time around, he's opted for the songs that have the most personal resonance for him -- be they "deep cuts" like the epic "Achilles Last Stand" or "must-haves" like "Whole Lotta Love."

"We did 'The Rain Song' first," recalls Bonham regarding initial rehearsals for the 2011 tour. "And it sent the hairs on the back of my neck up. It's such a beautiful piece of music, I can't wait to perform it live. Such great drum parts, such beauty within the song in itself.

"These days, you don't write a song where you go right into the next segment and don't have any vocals for another minute and a half. Nobody does that anymore."

Of course, for Bonham, the enduring power of the music itself is only part of the story. JBLZE is about that music first and foremost, but it's also about a son paying tribute to his father, and celebrating the man behind the musician.

Through the video content of the concert, Bonham says that he shows "some very tender and pure moments that not many people have seen, such as my dad as a child growing up with his father, interacting with his own family, with his brother, and with his children. And, you know, this is a man that would grow up to be 'the Beast'-- Bonzo, the legendary guy that was one of the first [rock musicians] to throw a TV set through a window.

"But realistically, he was my dad and just an everyday guy, really. So within the context of the show, I talk a little about him as a person, you know, as a guy that I knew not so much as the [man] that you know as Bonzo, but as my father. I show some of the moments we shared together which were and are, you know ... very cherished now."

******************************

All in the family

When John Bonham died on the eve of a planned world tour in 1980, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin -- Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page -- made their decision in an instant. There could be no Zeppelin without Bonham.

The loss for Page, Plant and Jones was indeed immense. But for Jason Bonham, that loss ran even deeper.

Happily, in the years since, Bonham has grown close with the former Zeppelin musicians. When the group agreed to do a one-off concert in London's O2 Arena in 2007, their dear friend's son was at the top of the call list.

Jason Bonham never made a secret of his desire to keep Zeppelin going after the O2 Arena show, but alas, it was not to be. Plant in particular has been public in his insistence that carrying on without Bonham -- as bandmembers enter their 60s -- would do a grave disservice to the work that Led Zeppelin did.

Jason was involved with Page and Jones as they considered carrying on without Plant -- at one point even auditioning Aerosmith's Steven Tyler for the job. But this project withered on the vine.

Here, Jason describes the role that Plant has come to fulfill in his life, post the O2 Arena show:

After seeing a television show in England where Bonham was interviewed on the topic of growing up with a drummer for a dad, Jason Bonham recalls that "Robert suddenly went, 'You know, I just forgot what it would be like for you. I really did, you know, having missed having a hero around to grow up to, and him being gone for so long.'

"I think about this more now, when I make certain decisions in my life, now that I have my own family, and my son is the same age that I was when I lost my Dad," Bonham says. "It's a tough one, to be in that situation when you haven't got the advice of a father to give you. So I sometimes miss him there. I miss him when I go, 'Dad, what should I do?'

"And what I said to Robert was, sometimes when I don't know what to do, I call you, because you are the closest thing to dad for me."

From the 'Black Country'

Lest anyone consider Jason Bonham to be mired in nostalgia, when he isn't leading Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience, the drummer is fully engaged with his new band, Black Country Communion. The four-piece is a bit of a supergroup, comprised of Bonham, former Deep Purple bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa and Dream Theatre keyboardist Derek Sherinian.

Black Country Communion released its critically lauded debut effort in 2010, and a sophomore album is due in June. Check the band out via www.bccommunion.com.

http://www.buffalone...ticle414326.ece

Tribute to Led Zeppelin comes straight from the heart

By Jeff Miers

NEWS MUSIC CRITIC

Published: May 10, 2011

Interesting, isn't it, to realize that there is a man behind the iconic image? To acknowledge the fact that, as much as we view the greatest of the rock greats as somehow more than human, they always end up being regular people who love their kids and wrestle with just what it means to live a life in, for, and with music?Jason Bonham has had to live with a large shadow his whole life. But as he told the assembled repeatedly throughout Monday's Led Zeppelin Experience show in UB's Center for the Arts, "The guy you all know as 'Bonzo' the crazy drummer was just dad to me."

Through a mixture of killer live performance, in-time video projections, and anecdotal exchanges with the audience, the younger Bonham bathed in his father's sizable legacy. And one feels justified in supposing that dad would've been proud.

The strange thing about "tribute gigs" is that it's safe to assume that most folks come to the shows expecting to hear note for note re-creations of the songs they grew up with. The dilemma for the band performing is to offer a balance of "reenactment" and full-on, impassioned performance.

Bonham and his band had this down. For the most part, the ensemble delved into the in-concert version of Zeppelin, which was always improvisation-heavy. The players delivered the seminal Zeppelin lines. When they went off, they went off in the spirit and style of Zeppelin. That's all that can be asked.

Bonham—being a Bonham, and having played with his father's former band mates in the past, most notably at the already legendary 2007 O2 Arena gig in London — has fully inhabited his father's drumming style. Huge and bombastic, but always deeply musical, the elder Bonham laid the only proper blueprint for heavy music drumming. Jason played like his dad, and brought his own interpretation to the "triplet-heavy" table.

People were freaking out from the beginning, as the band dove into a pair of sets that ended up leaving the gathered in a state of Zeppelin-esque befuddlement. The music is so completely awe-inspiring that any time one hears it done well, one reacts. Jason has the added benefit of having grown up with this stuff, and as he led the band through Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," then stepped to the front of the stage to share personal memories (and videos) of his father, it became clear that this was not to be an average "tribute" gig.

While Crosby Stills&Nash's "Our House" played in the background, Jason shared stories of his father, culminating in his recounting of "the first Zeppelin tune I remember hearing." "Your Time Is Gonna Come," as it turns out, and our time did.

The set list—"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," "What Is and What Should Never Be," "I Can't Quit You Baby," "When the Levee Breaks," "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Thank You"—brought the crowd to its feet several time during the first set. When the band delivered a second set that reached its natural coda with "Stairway to Heaven" and "Kashmir," everyone in the Center for the Arts appeared to be either completely, or very close to, blown away.

It should be noted that, as awesome as Jason Bonham was, the star of the show was very clearly guitarist Tony Cantania, who handled Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page's parts with incredible precision and passion. Interesting, since Page is a notoriously off-the-cuff genius, a man who could improvise rock solos in a manner analogous to the finest of jazz soloists.

Cantania was simply incredible. He captured Page's tone most ably. He nailed the "The Song Remains the Same" version of the "Since I've Been Loving You" solo in manner that rivaled the version Page played at the old Aud in 1995, when Plant & Page played that venue. And he moved nimbly between acoustic, electric, and double-neck guitars as needed, as if he'd been born to the gig.

This show was a gift to Zeppelin fans. It reminded us at once how incredible this music can be in the concert setting, and how significant the body of work Zeppelin created remains.

Concert Review

Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience

Monday night in the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts

http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/gusto/music/concert-reviews/article418720.ece

Edited by SteveAJones
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Bonham's son brings authentic experience to Led Zep tribute

By Michael DiVittorio

MCKEESPORT DAILY NEWS

Friday, May 13, 2011

There are a lot of Led Zeppelin tribute bands.There is only one that features the son of the group`s legendary drummer, the late John "Bonzo" Bonham, and only one is coming to Greensburg this weekend.

Jason Bonham`s Led Zeppelin Experience will take the stage at The Palace Theatre at 21 W. Otterman St. in Greensburg on Sunday. Doors open at 7 p.m.

"I`ve actually played with the band a couple of times," Bonham said. "What I kind of do is give a slightly different angle on the story content of the show, and I kind of release and show some very tender and pure moments that not many people have seen, which is dad as a child growing up with his father, interacting with his own family and his brother and his children."

John Bonham died in September 1980. The Experience show features footage of the late Bonham performing, adding a sense of father and son playing together. There also is some storytelling during the performance, which of course includes many of Zeppelin`s classic songs.

"I talk about him as a person, as a guy that I knew, not so much as the guy that you know," Bonham said. "We didn`t live in the era of everything that was recordable on your phone and very easily accessible. When you see these moments, there are few and far between actually recorded and captured."

Bonham represented his father when Led Zeppelin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and played with the band at a reunion concert at London`s O2 Arena in December 2007 with surviving members Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. It was Led Zeppelin`s first full-length concert since Bonzo`s death.

Song selection is a big part of Bonham`s Experience, and every piece is personal.

"The song choices had to be everything that kind of meant something," Bonham said. "From my first memory of hearing Led Zeppelin, which is a song that`s in the show, 'Your Time is Gonna Come,` it kind of stood out for me for all my life. The first moment I ever heard that song as a child i remember being terrified of church organs from the intro."

Other songs expected to be played are "Moby Dick," "When the Levee Breaks," "Babe I`m Gonna Leave You," "The Lemon Song," "Kashmire" and "The Rain Song."

The Pittsburgh and Greensburg areas have always been a big supporter of Led Zeppelin, and Bonham realizes that.

"You can`t drive anywhere in America without hearing it on some form of station," he said. "It`s quite true to how Zeppelin was taken, where they were key and where they were big in the different cities. I`m looking forward to getting out there. While the demand is there I`ll keep doing it. I feel blessed to do it."

Other members of the Experience are Tony Catania on guitar and theremin, Stephen LeBlanc on keyboards/pedal-steel guitars, James Dylan on lead vocals, and recently acquired bass player Dorian Heartsong. Original bass player Michael Devin had a prior commitment with Whitesnake.

Bonham noted his band does not try to look like Led Zeppelin.

"The other people, I don`t mind them doing it, but I would have felt weird if I had gone out there and done the dress-up," he said. "It`s more music and the love and the passion that we all have for it."

Bonham`s show was made for the theater, in a close, intimate setting that provides a very emotional experience.

"If anything I`ve learned from forming songs true to the meaning of the song is be aware of the audience and the environment you`re in," the drummer said. "You change the music to suit the environment, the compassion, the personal moments, the energy, the light and shade, the intimacy. You really have to take everything into consideration when performing these songs to make them feel and make them believable ... everyone so far seems to get what I try and do, which is a great thing in itself."

Tickets range from $35 to $100 and are available online at www.thepalacetheatre.org or at the box office. Service charges apply. Box office hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 724-836-8000 for info.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailynewsmckeesport/entertainment/s_736935.html

Jason Bonham fulfills father-son dream in Led Zeppelin Experience

By Rege Behe

PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Friday, May 13, 2011

Jason-BonhamLed-Zeppelin-02Arena-Ross-Halfin-b.jpg

Jason Bonham (Ross Halfin)

Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience

When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday

Admission: $35-$40

Where: Palace Theatre, Greensburg

Details: 724-836-8000 or website

Since Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1979, there have been legions of imitators trying to capture the group's incandescent sound. Tribute bands like Get the Led Out, Hammer of the Gods and Lez Zeppelin strive to be latter-day incarnations of one of rock's most iconic groups.

That they always fall short of delivering the true goods is inevitable; replicating the vocal range of Robert Plant or the guitar wizardry of Jimmy Page is like trying to mimic Van Gogh's brush strokes or James Joyce's prose.

Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience is different. As the son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham (who died in 1980), he has rare access to the music and the legacy.

"One thing I kind of give it is that I've actually played with the band a couple of times and had some moments in authenticity," Bonham said during a recent teleconference to promote Sunday's show at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg.

Bonham notably performed with Page, Plant and bassist John Paul Jones at the Led Zeppelin Reunion in 2007. His ensemble, which features bassist Michael Devin, vocalist James Dylan, guitarist Tony Catania and multi-intrumentalist Stephen LeBlanc, was set to tour once, then disband. When so many fans responded positively to the show, he was forced to reconsider his initial presumption.

But he had to convince the one person who could stop the proceedings.

"I spoke to my mom (Pat Phillips Bonham), and she said, 'Listen, you're representing the family here, and I appreciate you doing it,' " Bonham said. "She came out to see the show and said, 'You know, I was a little skeptical at first, but the show is so wonderfully put together and it's very special.' She said, 'Please continue this for me as long as you feel comfortable doing it.' "

Led Zeppelin's music is the anchor of the presentation, and Bonham is not content to merely regurgitate the better-known songs. The second half of the show features "The Rain Song," "Achilles' Last Stand" and "In the Light," which Bonham said Led Zeppelin never performed live.

There is a multimedia presentation that, at one point, has Bonham drumming in tandem with his father via vintage footage on the songs "Moby Dick" and "When the Levee Breaks."

"In essence, I actually get to fulfill one of his wishes as well as mine to play with him," Bonham said. "And then somebody pointed out, well, what's it like being the kid who's now the old man playing with the young kid? Because now, I'm live along with my father, who's 22 years younger than me (Bonham is 44) in the clip. It's kind of a twist on things, but I try and ... make it as real as possible. There's no fake in the show -- you're there, you're exposed to all the elements that could go wrong, but it's heartfelt, and that's what makes it very unique."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/music/s_736550.html

Jason Bonham turns Led Zep reunion disappointment into an Experience

Music preview

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Thursday, May 12, 2011

jasonbonham_160.jpg

Drummer Jason Bonham, whose father,

John, was the drummer for Led Zeppelin,

has the support of Robert Plant for Jason

Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience.

Jason Bonham was able to make a dream come true in December 2007 when he took the stage at the O2 Arena in London with the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin. He was the easy choice to fill the shoes of his legendary father, the mighty John Bonham, whose death in 1980 marked the end of Led Zeppelin.

After the London gig, it was widely expected that the reunion would rekindle a new era of Zeppelin.

"I was very much under the illusion," the drummer said in a recent teleconference, "that we were going to write an album and we were going to put together a new project, whether it be under the banner of Led Zeppelin, which I doubted, but it was going to be a new project that would feature Jimmy and John Paul and myself. In early 2008, it kind of came to a halt, which was a hard thing for me to get over for a while. You know, I had just played the concert of my life. Playing with them was a great point, one of the greatest points of my life."

At the time, singer Robert Plant killed the fan buzz by announcing that he was committed to working that year with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. He has since indicated that his Zeppelin days are behind him. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Mr. Bonham auditioned other high profile singers for a new project, but plans fell by the wayside. (Aerosmith's Steven Tyler was in the running, then thought better of it.)

Three years later, the 44-year-old drummer -- who has played for a variety of bands including Motherland, Foreigner and currently Black Country Communion -- is on the road for a second leg of the tribute show Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience.

He acknowledges that he sought out the blessing of at least one Zeppelin member.

"I actually called Robert and spoke to him about it. Robert told me not to be concerned and then we went on an interview together and a DJ tried to throw me under the bus saying, 'Hey, what did you think about Jason doing a Led Zeppelin tour without any of you guys?' Robert turned around and went on the defensive for me and said, 'Well, Jason can do whatever he wants, when he wants.' He said, 'Jason plays these songs like nobody else...' That was a big step for me when Robert came in there and said, 'You know what? This is Jason representing his family and his father. Just let him be'."

The band features the drummer's longtime friend and guitar cohort Tony Catania, bassist Dorean Heartsong, keyboardist Stephen LeBlanc and James Dylan, a singer discovered through a website called Virtual Zeppelin who looks more like Daughtry than Plant.

"What really pleased me was the fact that he didn't have blonde curly hair and he wasn't, you know, a look-alike," Mr. Bonham says. "The last thing I wanted to do is go out there and do a dress up -- that would have felt weird."

In tackling the Zeppelin canon, he started with songs that meant something to him, like his first memory of the band, "Your Time is Going to Come," as well as his two favorites, "Kashmir" and "The Rain Song." They're also playing later Zeppelin songs such as "Achilles' Last Stand" and "In the Light," which, he says, "is another rare one which Zeppelin never, ever did live."

He draws on memories of seeing LZ personally five times as well as the concert footage. In fact, at one point, he plays along to a video clip of his father, who died when he was 14.

"We didn't have two drum kits in our house. So when I get to do this these days it's really for the first time ever that we actually get to play in tandem together because sadly we never did in real life. We never actually got to experience that. I've read in many articles that my father had said, 'My son plays drums and I'd really love for him to play next to me at the Royal Albert Hall.' So in essence I actually get to fulfill one of his wishes as well as mine, to play with him."

Another unique aspect of the Experience are breaks between songs for his personal, family recollections.

"This is a man that would grow up to be the Beast, the guy, Bonzo -- the legendary guy that was one of the first to throw a TV set through a window. But realistically he was my dad and just an everyday guy really. I show some of the moments we shared together which were and are very cherished now. We didn't live in the era of everything being recordable on your phone and very easily accessible. So when you see these moments, they're very few and far between."

-----------------------------

'Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience'Where: Palace Theatre, Greensburg.

When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $40-$35; 1-800-745-3000.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11132/1145746-388.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml

Edited by SteveAJones
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