The first dates of Robert Plant and The Band Of Joy’s 2011 summer European tour have been announced. They will be appearing at the following venues:
19th July – CAPANNELLE FIESTA Italy, Rome
20th July – ARENA CVICA Italy, Milan
22nd July – LES ROMAN ARENES France, Nimes
23rd July – PALEO FESTIVAL Switzerland, Nyon
27th July – NEW ARENA Russia, St. Petersburg
29th July – CROCUS HALL Russia, Moscow
31st July – PALACE OF SPORTS Ukraine, Kiev
2nd August – TORWAR Poland, Warsaw
3rd August – ZITADELLE Germany, Berlin
5th August – LOCKERSEE FESTIVAL Belgium, Lokeren
Further dates are likely …

40 years ago this evening, Jimmy Page strapped on a newly acquired Gibson double neck guitar and played the first chords of a new lengthy composition in front of an audience for the first time.
The occasion was Led Zeppelin’s opening date on their UK tour at the Ulster Hall Belfast. The historic photo below captures the moment…

The song was Stairway To Heaven
The rest is history….
As TBL contributor Rikky Rooksby observes in the introduction to a major feature on Stairway To Heaven to be published in the next Tight But Loose …

Photo Credit: © Christie Goodwin
Black Country Communion have joined forces with Planet Rock, the UK’s leading classic rock radio station, to offer rock fans the opportunity to download two exclusive freelive Black Country Communion tracks.
The tracks, “Black Country” and “One Last Soul,” were originally recorded live in front of a specially invited audience at John Henry’s, London on  September 20th2010.  The live recordings have been exclusively mixed for Planet Rock by BCC’s producer, Kevin Shirley.
To be eligible to download the live tracks, rock fans are being asked to become VIP …

Many thanks for the great response to the TBL Stairway To Heaven 40th Anniversary Poll. Ahead of the March 5th anniversary, there is still time to cast your vote for the all time greatest live versions of the song.
All you need to do is list in order of preference  up to five  favourite LIVE versions of Stairway To Heaven.
The criteria is as follows: Any live version by Led Zeppelin is eligible plus post Zep versions ie Arms or Outrider tour, Live Aid, Page & Plant Japan TV, O2 reunion.
From these …

Robert Plant was the co host on the Chris Evans Radio 2 Breakfast Show this morning between 8 and 9am.
In a hugely enjoyable rapport with Chris Evans, he talked about the legacy of Zeppelin, the Band Of Joy album, Wolverhampton Wanderers and more –as well as reading out various news items. The playlist for the hour included Zep’s Rock And Roll and D’yer Mak’er plus the Band Of Joy’s Cental Two-O-Nine, Angel Dance and the new single Harm’s Swift Way.
A couple of effective loop pieces of Over The Hills And …

The new opera Anna Nicole with John Paul Jones’ on stage involvement, begins it’s run of six performances at the Royal Opera House London tonight. Written by Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thoms (whose previous credits include Jerry Springer: The Opera, and Shoes), it charts the eventful life of Anna Nicole Smith, the Playboy model who married an elderly billionaire and died of  an overdose of sleeping pills.
John Paul Jones will be performing as part of the onstage trio along with guitarist John Parricelli and drummer Pete Erskine.
John Parricelli was …

Bob Harris with Robert 2008
The bearded man I was sat across from last Tuesday lunchtime at the Heights bar in London, was directly responsible for enlightening myself and thousands of other Led Zeppelin fans, via his announcements from the TV screen on Tuesday and Friday nights back in the 1970s.
He was the man who introduced the stunning sequence that accompanied the premier of a new Led Zeppelin track on the evening of Tuesday, March 20th 1973. ‘’It’s the band’s use of dynamics’’, he said in that calm whispering tone, ‘’And …

As we move into February, the Robert Plant and The Band Of Joy tour continues across America – here’s a round up of the tour progress so far:
New songs worked into the set include a radically reworked version of Black Dog, a version of Nobody’s Fault But Mine that lends itself more to the Unledded version than the sonic Presence version and an excellent arrangement of Ramble On -while numbers such as In The Mood, Silver Rider and Cindy have re-appeared.  The press coverage has been universally positive and even …

Picture by David Smith (Toronto)
Robert Plant’s Band of Joy at DAR Constitution Hall
By Dave McKenna
Robert Plant got famous exploiting a traditional form of American music – the blues. At a Led Zeppelin show in Laurel in 1969, Washington Post pop-music critic Carl Bernstein (yeah, him) found Plant’s performance so derivative he labeled it “latter-day blackface.” Plant survived the slur, and he and Zeppelin went on to do all right for themselves. In fact, had Plant wanted to play that same stuff the same way with the same band all these …

Vote for the greatest live version of their greatest song
Nearly 40 years ago on the evening of March 5th 1971 at the Ulster Hall Belfast, Led Zeppelin  performed for the first time in public, a new lengthy 12 minute composition due to be released on their next album. It began in tranquil mood and then developed into a soaring climax. It told the tale of a lady who was sure, about a bustle in a hedgerow and advised that if you listened very hard the tune would come to you …