Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience

This is Led Zeppelin II (aka The Brown Bomber).  Nancy and I were at a Led Zeppelin concert last night.  What!  How could that be?  Well, the music was pure Zeppelin.  Thanks to genetics and heredity, Jason Bonham is on tour marking the 30th anniversary of his dad's passing, with an assembly of a terrific, albeit mostly unknown, group of musicians, as Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience.  It was a memorable, must-see show.  At a tired and odd venue (last time I was at the Star Plaza Theater (Merrilleville, IN) was 25 years ago for Hank Jr, The MTB, and the Allman Bros.) this show should have been somewhere in Chicago; at the Vic, the Brawlroom, the Park West, or the Chicago Theater.  Sadly, the place was a third empty - maybe 1,000 people.  No matter.

We were utterly astonished how great the sound was and how glad we were to have attended.  Jason was humble, funny, and poignant - but not melancholy.  During songs like Thank You (the one where Jason told us he tries the most to not cry) grainy footage was projected on the huge display screens backing the state, home movies of little Jason on the drum kit or playing in the garden, or of his dad clowning for the camera at the beach.  Coming out from behind his clear yellow Ludwig drum kit to front stage often during the show, Jason told us some of the home movie footage was taken just a week before Bonzo passed away.  He also told us of him hearing spooky bedtime noises down the hallway from his little bedroom that he thought was church music.  It was rehearsals for Your Time is Gonna Come, from the first album, which Jason's band played forthwith.  So where we witnessing the world's great LZ cover band of all time or peering into the living room of the Bonham house while Jason thumbed through the family scrapbook with Zeppelin cranked?  How about both!  An intimate rock concert is an oxymoron.  But it was almost too intimate.  Jason's not the first guy to lose a dad at 14 - but we felt a unique compassion and bond.   It was if Jason opened up a vein for us and poured out love, emotion, British Midlands humor, and some killer thumpity thump.  We got to hear and feel what it was like to grow up the son of a rock god.  Jason was born in 1966, and John passed away in Sept. 1980, when he was 14.

Before deciding to do this (tour and play LZ music), Jason told us some "music industry folks," mentioned that, "ah - maybe this is not the right thing to do."  In no way needing to defend this effort, Jason explained that they (him and this band he's assembled), like all of us, are fans of the music.  He picked a set list.  With an overwhelming canon from which to choose, he started of course with Rock and Roll, then almost everything from LZII, and yes - Stairway at the end, closing with Whole Lotta Love.  During Moby Dick, through the magic of technology, Jason was "accompanied" by his pop, with Bonzo shown playing along up on the big screen.  Jason told us that since there was only one drum kit in the house - he never had the chance to play live along side his dad.  That's just crushing to me.  The JBLZE band lineup was this: guitarist Tony Catania (Les Pauls and the SG double-neck for STH), spot-on vocalist James Dylan, bassist Michael Devin, and keyboardist/pedal-steel guitarist Stephen LeBlanc.