It’s gearing up to be a TBL summer of mass consumption with an outpouring of new TBL product due. Firstly Tight But Loose issue 29 is ready to go. This first issue of the 2011 subscription is another action packed affair. The magazine will be distributed over the next few days.If you are a 2010 subscriber your subscription ended with issue 28.

Now is the time to re subscribe!

All the details of how to subscribe can be found on the TBL Subscriptions link at the top of the TBL home page.

TBL 29 – essential spring/summer reading – you need it in your life!

Then there is the book Led Zeppelin Feather In The Wind –Over Europe 1980.

A multitude of boxes (thank you the Boud family for helping them in!) occupy a fair proportion of our house right now and understandably the good lady Janet wants to see the back of them as quickly as poss!

First look for the author in the TBL work station Totnes Close  Bedford where it was all formulated

To that end the book will commence distribution over the next two to three weeks. Those that have already paid a £10 deposit I will notify you of the balance to pay. Similarly those subscribers that are entitled to a £5 off discount, held over from subscribing before January 31st 2011 for the TBL 2010 subscription will also be notified.

The book is a very worthy successor to Then As It Was – Led Zeppelin At Knebworth 1979 – the full colour content greatly enhances the general feel of the lay out –all superbly designed by Mick Lowe. – with over 250 rarely seen photos and images. I have put my heart and soul into this project for many months and it’s very pleasing to at last be in receipt of the finished work.

An ordering link for the book will go live next week – get ready to invest in the book that chronicles the final days of Led Zeppelin on the road in 1980 – if you weren’t there then you can be soon..

On top of all that I will also be launching a special limited edition Led Zeppelin Feather In the Wind –Over Europe 1980 t shirt. Again a link of how to order this essential summer item will follow shortly.

More on all this soon…

Ahead of course is the TBL crew’s attendance at the Zep Fest 2011 Event in Washington DC over the weekend May 26th ,27th,and 28th. We are eagerly looking forward to coming over to spread the TBL word, meet like minded fans and soak up the array of live music that is being lined up. I plan to have a limited quantity of the new book on offer – if you are attending the Zep Fest event and wish to reserve a book for collection at the event all you have to do is notify me at davelewis.tbl1@ntlworld.com

For the latest Zep Fest2011 activity see www.zepfest2011.com

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the launch of the Glenn Hughes limited edition deluxe autobiography Deep Purple And Beyond: Scenes From The Life Of A Rock Star which he has worked on with Joel McIver. Glenn performed a truly stunning six song acoustic set that included (thank you Terry B for the detailed info!) Coast to Coast (a Trapeze track –it doesn’t get any better than this does it TB!)) Holy Man ( Deep Purple), I Found A Woman (from his first solo Album – Play Me Out),Too Late To Dave The World – (from the FUNK album) and the new Cold from the forthcoming BCC album.  He also made reference to Richard Cole – and Robert Plant noting they only ring each other when Wolves win!

Richard Cole and Glenn Hughes  –  May 12th 2011

It was great to see the aforementioned Richard Cole in attendance plus Lisa from Mascot Records, Tim from Record Collector, Peter Noble and Will Taylor from Noble PR and many more –the assembled TBL crew including Steve Way (no relation) Terry Boud and Kam had a great time and as ever, Glenn was his usual affable self, full of humility and showing genuine enthusiasm to be amongst his friends and fans as he mingled and posed for photos with all and sundry.

As I’ve said before Glenn Hughes’s empathy for TBL has been one of the key personal inspirations for me in driving things forward these past 18 months. The man is awesome.

Catch him on tour if you can.

TBL crew : Kam Assi, Steve Way,Terry Boud plus Jerry Bloom (Glenn’s tour manager) and DL

Glenn Hughes book launch-Idea Generation London – May 12th 2011.

Amazing to hear of the sale of a rare Knebworth stage crew t shirt for $10,000.

I have a photo somewhere which I’ll have to search out of Robert Plant wearing one of those shirts at the five a side football tournament he took part in at Wembley Arena in November 1979. I think I need a trip to the loft to sort out some of my own collection of vintage clothing. There’s dimes to be made in those old rags it would seem.

It was interesting to hear word of the planned re issue programme being undertaken by Pink Floyd – including expanded versions of Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall all due over the next year, kicking off with Dark Side in late September. They are all being extended with additional material. I am not a massive Floyd fan but do appreciate a lot of their mid 70s stuff and you can put me down for a Wish You Were Here.

There’s a lot of detail going into these releases and one hopes that sooner rather than later, the same process is undertaken for the Zep catalogue. Now that would be something. Whilst we are on the subject of the Floyd, the you tube clip of Dave Gilmour’s guest appearance at last night’s Roger Water’s The Wall 02 show is stirring viewing.

Today’s Sun newspaper has an interview with Nashville four piece Mona – Singer Nick Brown tells of Robert Plant’s praise for their Lines In the Sand track. Robert witnessed them as I did at the Jools Holland TV recording last November. The headline that reads ‘’Robert Plant said we nailed it better than Zep’’ might be a little over the top but their album due out next week is well worth checking out.

Football: The season draws to an end – a good one for Tottenham Hotspur by and large with the Champions League campaign being the undoubted highlight but it’s disappointing how they fell away in the premier  in recent weeks.

Tomorrow it’s the FA Cup Final with Stoke taking on Man City.

Was the time when this was the football showpiece that brought the nation together for 90 minutes every May. That tradition is sadly long gone. One of my party pieces is that I can name pretty much any FA Cup Final score from the mid 1950’s to the 1990s – I’d struggle to remember much about them in the last decade as the competition has become a victim of the money men.

It’s an appalling situation that tomorrow there are premiership games kicking off at 12.45 which will take focus away from what should be the big climax of the season. I’ll be watching anyway and recalling nostalgically those glorious previous finals of the 60s and 70s. I’ve just read next year they are moving the kick off from the traditional 3pm to 5.15pm. That really is putting the boot in to a once glorious institution.

Busy weekend ahead here stuffing TBL mags, planning book distribution etc etc. It’s nice to have Sam back here until Sunday.

Finally the Eurovision Song Contest is upon us – tomorrow night UK man/boy band Blue will battle with Europe’s finest (Jedward anyone?) for the chance to follow in the footsteps of Abba, Bucks Fizz and Lulu as Europe’s top singer of song.

It’s a little known fact but when Cliff Richard came second in 1968 with Congratulations, the future bass player in Led Zeppelin was involved in the  process of providing the choices of songs Cliff would sing. John Paul Jones arranged one of the six songs Cliff aired on Cilla Black’s TV show for which viewers had to vote ( a clip of him being introduced as the arranger on Cilla Black’s TV show still exists). The song was Do You Remember and JPJ played bass and arranged it (he also played bass of another of the contender’s High And Dry. Alas, Do You Remember was not chosen as the song to represent the UK and that may have been another reason why he needed out of the arranging session scene and in on the happening new group of the year being formed out of the demise of The Yardbirds by one Jimmy Page.

Cliff’s loss was definitely Led Zeppelin’s gain…