This Saturday –  here’s the latest info…

INTERNATIONAL JOHN BONHAM A CELEBRATION III

THE CANOPIES, MARKET WALK,REDDITCH, WORCESTERSHIRE UK

SATURDAY 27th MAY 2023

Celebrating the 75th Birthday of John Henry Bonham in Redditch town centre on Saturday 27th May 2023 with a day/evening of live blues/rock music from top artists and bands.

​Led Into Zeppelin

Eric Bell Band (co-founder & original Thin Lizzy guitarist)
Vincent Flatts Final Drive

CODA- A Tribute to Led Zeppelin

Taxi For Jesus

Ceri Justice Band

Sundance

Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan

​PLUS Special Guests – all with links to Bonzo and/or Led Zeppelin.

*Led Into Zeppelin  

With a reputation as one of the UK’s premier tributes to the mighty Zeppelin, and featuring the amazing vocals of Damian White and blistering guitar of Chris Preston, the powerful rhythm section of Damon Waite on drums, Pete Betts on bass &Jason Scott Wilkinson on keys. This band are sure to bring the show to a rocking close.

​*Eric Bell Band
Eric Bell, best known as a founder member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy, is coming to Redditch with his blues-based trio, the Eric Bell Band.

His signature guitar sound can be heard on the first three albums Thin Lizzy released and on the #1 British chart hit Whiskey in the Jar. After his time in Thin Lizzy, he briefly fronted his own group before joining the Noel Redding Band in the mid-1970s. He has since released several solo albums and performs regularly with his band.

*Vincent Flatts Final Drive

The original and authentic “Whisky Swiggin’, Bad Ass Kickin’, Go Anywhere Giggin’, Boogie Band”. Featuring legendary frontman Steve Burton, Vincent Flatts will take you on a musical journey from southern-infused country rock to fast and exciting boogie. Whether or not you have seen this Birmingham band ‘live’, you are in for a real treat!

*CODA – A Tribute to Led Zeppelin are Europe’s most authentic and exciting Led Zeppelin tribute band, replicating the power,excitement and magic of a Led Zeppelin show like no other. Arguably, they are the only proper four-piece Zep tribute band in Europe that looks and sounds as close to the real thing as possible, featuring authentic-looking and sounding instruments as well as incredible, hand-made replica costumes that will take you back to the time when the Gods of Rock ruled the world!

*Ceri Justice Band

With her Irish roots and powerful, bluesy vocals, West Midlands singer songwriter, Ceri Justice, is now realising her childhood dreams.  

Accompanied by her band of seasoned professional musicians – John Caswell, guitar & vocals (Steve Gibbons Band), Simon Smith, bass (recording credits include Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan, Wilson Phillips, Glen Ballard and Dave Stewart), Nigel Darville, keyboards (Ruby Turner, Fine Young Cannibals , Rebecca Downes), Mickey Barker, drums (Magnum, 1985)

  *Taxi For Jesus

Taxi for Jesus are made up of four past members of the Trevor Burton Band; Maz Mitrenko, Bill Jefferson, Pez Connor and Stuart Ford, all of whom are well respected and seasoned musicians in their own right and have more than earned the credentials to pay homage to and perform some of the repertoire associated with the Trevor Burton Band.  That said TFJ are no tribute band and are rapidly establishing their own unique brand & style and are further enhancing their set as they embark on this new and exciting project.

*Sundance Classic Rock Band

Classic Rock Band recently reformed by John Lynam (Vocals & Guitar), with Gary Bennett (Bass) and Heath Laight (Drums).John began his career in the early 1970s with the Daniel Boone Band, who supported Free, Family and Manfred Mann. He played with Life, which emigrated to Scandinavia and became the biggest band in Denmark.On his return to the UK, he formed Sundance with Pete Oliver, Bob Bowman, Alan Moore, Steph Griffin, and Phil Savage, and recorded 2 albums that were released worldwide. and toured with Thin Lizzy, Caravan and Moody Blues. John also wrote the group’s chart single Coming Down which entered the UK Top 40. John later worked as a session player with many different artists including Led Zeppelin, blues legend Johnny Winter, Rory Gallagher and Buddy Miles, drummer with Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies before joining Birmingham Folk Rock group, Quill.

*Ritchie Dave Porter & Debra Susan

Birmingham-based Blues and Rock duo who have released 13 popular singles with airplay on the very best Blues and Rock Radio stations in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil all to critical acclaim. The duo’s debut single ‘One Hell Of A Ride hit #1 within Australia and four number 2 chart positions in Australian top ten for Banks Radio Australia, Valley FM and Sweet Sunday Sounds.

I am aiming to be in attendance at this event and look forward to seeing all that can make it along…

FULL DETAILS AND TICKET INFO SEE LINK BELOW:

https://www.johnbonhamac.com/

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And then three years after Earls Court this happened…

On stage with The Who 45 years ago this week…

The Whole Story:

45 years ago this week on May 25 1978, I was lucky enough to attend a secret filming of The Who at Shepperton Studios. This was arranged to capture footage for their film the Kids Are Alright. Little did I know back then that a rather excited spontaneous leap on to the stage by me at the close of their performance of Won’t Get Fooled Again would be captured for all time – and featured in the film – and subsequently on DVD and YouTube.

So how did all this happen?

Well firstly I was a big Who fan for sure – and had been since 1969. Pinball Wizard was one of the first singles I’d owned. I’d seen them at the Empire Pool Wembley in October 1975 and at Charlton on a very rainy bank Holiday in May 1976 – on both occasions they were absolutely brilliant. I loved all the albums – particularly Quadrophenia, Who’s Next and The Who By Numbers – albums that spoke to me, were my guiding light and packed power and emotion – next to Led Zeppelin during this era, they were my second favourite band without a doubt.

In 1977, The Who began making a film to be titled the Kids Are Alright – a career spanning documentary. For that purpose in December 1977 they decided to perform a low key gig at Kilburn State Theatre in London. My very good friend Dec through the then boyfriend of his sister Yvonne, managed to get in on this gig. A guy named Steve Margo was the link – he was a massive Who fan – along with another high profile Who fan ‘Irish’ Jack Lyons and one or two others, later staged a Who Exhibition at London’s ICA in August 1978.

Back to the story – the gig was arranged at short notice and due to the fact I had no phone at home at that point (how ridiculous that seems now!), Dec was unable to inform me that this gig was on – so I missed out. However, all was not lost

The Who were unhappy with the footage they got that day and decided to have another go at capturing footage for the film. In early May we heard through Steve Margo that The Who would soon be staging a gig in London to be filmed for the documentary. Plans were all veiled in secrecy – eventually word came though and we were instructed to meet at Hyde Park Corner on the morning of May 25, 1978.

At that time Led Zeppelin were somewhat inactive following the curtailing of their 1977 US tour due to the tragic death of Robert Plant’s son. In May there were reports in the press that they had re grouped at Clearwell Castle for some rehearsing. Later in the year they would travel to Abba’s studio in Stockholm to record The In Through The Out Door album.  In early May, I was contacted by Sounds writer Geoff Barton. He had seen I had replied to a couple of Zep queries in their Wax Fax column. Sounds were planning a special three week feature to run in September to mark the tenth anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s formation.

I was commissioned to produce a ten year timeline history alongside an extensive discography covering official releases and bootlegs. I had a fair few meetings at the Sounds office in Long Acre and took in a large collection of memorabilia and albums for them to photograph – no scanning of images back then of course. Subsequently, my summer of 1978 was dominated by this work which had to be in for early August. I hand wrote the entire contents of the feature and by and large when it was all published as a four week part work it was a big success . It was my first time in print and I also got paid for it. More on all this later in the year. I also attended two amazing gig in July of that summer – David Bowie at Earls Court and Bob Dylan at Blackbushe.

Back to the story – so it was against this backdrop of Zep writing that I turned my attention to this very exciting prospect of witnessing The Who live on stage again.

So come the day – Thursday May 25 , we were duly ferried out of London by coaches to the Shepperton studio complex – wined and dined in the canteen where we mixed with 18th century costume drama actors and actress’s and then led into the Studio 2 soundstage for a mini performance by The Who.

The filming had been set up by director Jeff Stein to make up for the rather lucklustre footage he had garnered from the aforementioned Kilburn Theatre the previous December. It was to be the contemporary insert of a career spanning documentary that would emerge as The Kids Are Alright released to theatres on both sides of the Atlantic the next year.

So it was in a state of some considerable awe that we were ushered into the studio where a specially constructed stage aimed at replicating any night on the road for The Who had been assembled. The audience of around 200 consisted of a mixture of Who fanatics, liggers, journalists and musicians – amongst the latter was a young Chrissie Hynde. Also in attendance shooting one of his first gigs was the soon to become world renowned photographer Ross Halfin.

The last time I had seen The Who live was amongst 65,000 rain sodden fans at The Who Put the Boot In show at Charlton Athletic football ground in May 1976. Now I was just a few feet away as Pete Townshend power chorded his way through a riveting Baba O Reily -one of my all time fave numbers not just by The Who, but anyone. Thrilling deliveries of John Entwhistle’s  My Wife and Won’t Get Fooled Again followed.

The initial plan had been to perform just those three numbers. Impressed by the by the relaxed of nature of the whole affair, Townshend signalled to Daltrey, Moon and Entwhistle to stay on stage – and spontaneously they kicked in to Substitute and then instantly into I Can’t Explain.

We had come under the guise of seeing The Who shoot a handful of numbers for their film – we were now privvy to a mini greatest hits concert as they ran through Summertime Blues, Magic Bus My Generation and My Wife (again). It was another blast through Won’t Get Fooled Again that brought this extraordinary performance to a close. Watching it all unfold in such close proximity was truly the stuff of rock’n’roll dreams – it was just utterly sensational.

And that’s when it happened…

Fulled by a combination of beer and wine, and a surge of adrenalin from the sheer wonder of what I was witnessing, as Won’t Get Fooled Again ended and the band warmly took the applause, I took it upon myself to climb on the camera tracking and make one giant leap towards Pete Townshend and then one small step towards Roger Daltrey accidentally cuffing him in the eye in the process. On any regular gig this spontaneous stage rush may well have resulted in the stinging sensation of a swinging Gibson Les Paul crushing against flesh. I was aware of Abbie Hoffman’s treatment by Pete when he walked on to the Woodstock stage during their performance in 1969 – I really did not have time to think of any consequences as I made that leap. Luckily for me Townshend hugged me warmly and Daltrey good humouredly shrugged off my enthusiastic arm waving. it’s worth noting I was not alone in this stage invasion – though I was not aware of it at the time. In the film just before my entry you can see a young lady more calmly approach and hug Roger.

Behind all this action, a permanently devilish grin was spread across the face of Kith Moon. Physically showing the strains of his LA lifestyle he was at last back where he functioned best… on stage with the ‘Orrible ‘Oo.

As we waded out into the bright late afternoon sunshine little did we realise we had just witnessed Keith Moon’s final public performance with The Who. And little did I realise that my leap of faith would be subsequently retained in the film’s final cut.

Outside in the grounds of Shepperton there was one more task for the lucky few in attendance to perform. We were asked to line up in four rows behind each member of The Who. This was for a potential album cover design for The Who’s forthcoming Who Are You album – the concept being that we would act as clones  for the band to illustrate the album title. So we were all asked to line up – I was in the queue behind Keith Moon. As it turned out this cover idea was scrapped. However, years later a couple of outtake photos from this session appeared in the Ross Halfin complied Who Genesis Publications photo book. These photos  reveals that for some reason, I had stepped out of line and you can see me in my blue bomber jacket to the right – another remnant of the day.

And then there was more.

Incredibly this was not the end of the Shepperton saga. Steve Margo informed us that he had been invited to attend another filming session the next day – and did we want to tag along? Did we ever!

So it was on Friday May 26 Dec and I met along with Dec’s sister’s boyfriend Jack we met  Steve in St. John’s Wood who then drove us to the Shepperton Studio complex. We were were allowed in to the Studio 2 soundstage again  and there before us onstage were The Who. This time in front of a camera crew and a few technicians, road crew and Who personnel including soundman  Bob Pridden, lighting expert John Wolff  and Who manager Bill Curbishley. I could never have envisaged  back then that one day I would interview Bill in his office discussing The Who, Led Zeppelin , Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Irish jack was also there.

The objective of this days filming was to perfect the laser sequence during Keith Moon’s drum solo and into Roger’s scream before Pete and John come back in. We watched multiple takes of Keith performing his solo and Roger bathed in lasers marching on the spot as the camera panned in. We watched this repeated scene in absolute awe. 40 years on this close up experience of The Who filming this sequence remains right up there amongst the most thrilling live music moments I’ve been lucky enough to witness.

I was back behind the counter at my job in WH Smiths next day – and back on the Led Zep Sounds feature for the next few weeks. I did hastily hand write a couple of thousand words of a review of the May 25 Shepperton experience.

This was not quite the end of The Who 1978 story.

On August 1 1978, Dec and I attended the opening of the Who’s Who Exhibition at London’s ICA. Both Pete Townshend and Keith Moon were in attendance. The producer of the film Jeff Stein saw me and informed my I could be clearly seen in the final scenes of the film leaping on stage. The Who’s Who exhibition was superbly well done and way ahead of it’s time with stage clothes, instruments ,videos etc. I had a chat with both Pete and Keith – and had a photo taken with him. He seemed on great form proudly talking about the famous Pictures Of Lily drum kit that was on display. This pic shows me with Keith and Ian Dury with his back to us.

The Who Are You album came out in August and I purchased it on the day of release. An excellent album with some superb performances such as New Song, Sister Disco, Love Is Coming Down and the title track. It still sounds brilliant.

On the evening of Thursday September 7, I was watching the News at Ten on TV when they announced that Keith Moon had been found dead. It was no secret that Keith had carried a lot of demons around in recent years but it was still a terrible shock.

Unlike Zep, The Who decided to carry on – for them I’d say it was the right decision though it was never quite the same.

The following May  The Who played an unannounced show at London’s Rainbow Theatre – I missed out on that but Dec and I did have a vague plan to go to Frejus in France to see further gigs they were playing to launch the film – however, that plan did not come off

In June 1979 The Kids Are Alright film came to Bedford. Knowing I may appear in it, our gang of Dec, Tom, Phil etc all came along to view it at the Granada Cinema in Bedford (sadly long gone).  The film overall was excellent with some fantastic footage – no sighting of me of course until right at the close as the credits rolled… then on I leap into Pete Townshend’s’ arms (and nearly poking Roger Daltrey’s eye in the process!). In the cinema a huge cheer greeted my arrival – and of course I was well pleased I had made the final cut.

So there it was – my leap of faith captured for all time for all to see…

In August 1979 ,a week after the second Zep Knebworth show we went to Wembley Stadium to see The Who on a bill that included AC/DC (with Bon Scott), The Stranglers and Nils Lofgren. The Who were still great with Kenney Jones on drums but it was a somewhat challenging day – with lots of crowd trouble down the front.

I’ve seen The Who a fair few times since 1978 – notably at the Watford Town Hall in 2002, at the London Forum 2004, the Quadrophenia presentation at the Royal Albert Hall in 2010 and on March 23 2015 at the 02.

Even though they are now down to The Who Two , their catalogue of era defining music is still a crystal clear definition of what rock is all about – the last occasion I saw them at that 02 Arena was yet further testament to the lasting durability of The Who.

As for the Shepperton experience, well I’ve dined out on that clip many times since that leap of faith all of 44 years ago. I’m still in touch with the legendary Who fan Irish Jack who was there on those magic Shepperton afternoons – in fact I was in touch with him this week.

Looking back now, It was a moment that crystallised the impact a live performance can have.

It was a completely unplanned spontaneous action. If I had planned it, I would probably have worn a Who T- shirt rather than the McCartney/Wings London Town one I had on!

I was completely overwhelmed at The Who’s incredible performance and right then at that moment I needed to show my appreciation and where better to do it than on the actual stage with the band…

My Facebook friend Michael Starke described this photo (a still from the footage) of me hugging Pete  as ”The greatest fan interaction shot ever”.

That is some accolade…

It was some afternoon back in 1978 and 45 years on, the memory of it all looms ever large and pleasingly so…not least because it can be seen from several angles on the YouTube clip.

I was in the right place at the right time for it all to be captured on film –  and yes on the afternoon of May 25 1978, this 21 year old kid from Bedford was very much alright…

Dave Lewis – May ,2023

YouTube clips:

The Who At Shepperton Studios  May 25, 1978 – Won’t Get Fooled Again: Dave Lewis on stage with The Who – 45 years ago this week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0464LMlzs

I arrive at 10mins 42

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6n8DHBIHFk

I arrive on multiple angles at 11mins 05

It was 9 years ago May 21 2014…

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DL Diary Blog Update:

Friday May 19

Saturday May 20:

Saturday is platterday – on the player the rather brilliant Beck-Ola album by The Jeff Beck Group…getting in the zone for the Tribute To Jeff Beck Royal Albert Hall show I am aiming to be at next Tuesday…