John Paul Jones with Seasick Steve at Glastonbury:

The official Glastonbury programme reveals that John Paul Jones will be joining Seasick Steve for his appearance at Glastonbury on Friday night June 28th. Seasick appears at the West Holt stage at 20.30 hours. After contributing to Seasick’s  album Hubcap Music, John has been performing with Seasick at selected concerts recently and in May also linked up with him for an appearance on Later with Jools Holland. There’s coverage of the Glastonbury performance scheduled for BBC 4  which states ‘’Mark Radcliffe introduces a performance from the West Holts Stage by US bluesman Steven Gene Wold aka Seasick Steve with his unique take on blues, mostly involving his own customised guitars’’. Details at –

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03695jm

John Paul Jones with Seasick Steve at Glastonbury Update:

Superb performance at Glastonbury which saw JPJ on bass, backing vocals, mandolin and lap steel guitar.

See clip at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6-M6FBmZ0

Thanks to our TBL on the spot reporter Michaela!

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Robert Plant Presents Sensational Space Shifters :Shrine Auditorium June 26th 2013 –this report via Stephen Humphries for TBL…

Above photo – Oli Powell

Amazing show tonight. Robert and the band were on a mission to ROCK! This wasn’t the relatively subdued and sedate Plant of the Plant & Krauss and Band of Joy tours. This was the return of rock star Plant with the big voice and the big wails. His voice was even better than the great Rio concert official bootleg.

As Plant commented, tonight was 40 years to the day since Zep played Long Beach. Tonight’s crowd was the most loud and appreciative I’ve seen in years. Have been avoiding the setlists of the US tour but had been expecting the same old stuff they’d played in Australia. Instead, there were multiple surprises, which really made the show even more exciting. So good to see Plant expand his repertoire and draw from different era of his career to present a more rounded picture of his musical adventures.

Setlist

Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You

In the Mood

Tin Pan Valley

Spoonful

Black Dog

Another Tribe

Going to California

The Enchanter

Please Read the Letter

Friends

Fixin’ to Die

Born Y Aur Stomp

Whole Lotta Love

Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down

Rock ‘n’ Roll

 Stephen Humphries

Robert Plant you tube clip

Friends

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Led Zeppelin’s Frontman is Heading Back to the Santa Barbara Bowl

 Wednesday, June 26, 2013

By D.J. Palladino

 Santa Barbara Independent

Second only to Elvis Presley, Robert Plant helped create our idea of the white male rock frontman. It wasn’t just his bared chest, either — much like Elvis wasn’t just the thrusting loins. Plant arrived during the breaking wave of the hippie-era bands, with long hair and melodramatic (and slightly fey) moves that contrasted the low-key norm of ’60s superstars from Beatles to the Band. He was pure theater and ambivalently sexed. Metal was not the only social movement that arrived here via Zeppelin.

But the look was only half of it. Plant’s banshee tones and big power chords spawned voices ranging from Heart’s Ann Wilson and Geddy Lee. Lyrics that embraced Gollum and squeezed lemons helped open crazy doors, too. But in conversation, what emerges is Plant’s lust for big music-making. After chasing a number of folk idioms like bluegrass, he seems gloriously happy to rock again. Which is good, because it’s been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

How are you, and where are you in the tour?

I’m feeling slightly left of center right now. We’re in Austin, Texas, and I saw an awful lot of friends last night. I played hard, the band played hard and long, and then afterward we played long into the night, and I feel like I knocked 25 years off my life. This morning I’m feeling okay, I guess. But this was one of the best shows I think I can ever remember.

My first Robert Plant show was Led Zeppelin, August 1, 1969, at the Earl Warren Showgrounds here in Santa Barbara with Jethro Tull opening. Surely you must remember that show.

I remember Jethro Tull. You know, the funny thing I remember was that they had this right-wing management team with this ironclad edict that no one from this band could fraternize with anyone from any other band. The bass player got fired because he came out and played with us after the show when we were out being boys. But God bless Ian Anderson.

The last time I saw you play was the Raising Sand show with Allison Krauss. It seems to me that a life that spans such diverse aesthetics is fairly blessed.

Well, it doesn’t exactly drop into your lap; you do have to go fishing around for it. I mean, it was great meeting Allison, and let me right off the bat just say that she is the most incredibly talented person with this wicked sense of humor. That was a project that began and just kept picking up steam as it rolled along. In a way we had been on the same journey, but it really became something driven. I learned so much about American music. And I remember when we first started the tour in Louisville, Kentucky, and Allison was standing in front of the drums, and I thought it was marvelous she said she couldn’t hear herself think. But it was definitely wonderful, and I got to meet Buddy Miller and the whole Band of Joy came about because of it, because of us trance channeling Mavis Staple.

In 1990, when talking about Led Zeppelin’s inspirations, you said, “We just bought The Incredible String Band’s album and followed the directions.” I have heard this quote a lot, but it’s very true, especially in the arena of our Celtic roots.

You know, we spent a lot of time with American music as our inspiration, but we kept returning to that more abstract root that made us absurdly Brittanical. I saw the String Band as real dream weavers, and layered into all of this is a sense of peace, soliloquies of pure charm, riddlings, and joy. In some ways I think musicians have a great responsibility to promote all those things. It should be some sort of code for us. And yet then there’s the world around us that’s not really like that. You have Tony Blair resigning from the government when actually he should’ve been answering to the high courts for war crimes at The Hague. Instead he becomes a Catholic, and he’s made the ambassador to the Middle East, and you think what a fucking mess all of this is. And that dancing around with the String Band, no matter how alluring it is, well, we were just wet behind the ears is all.

The new band, the Sensational Space Shifters, is you, John Baggott, Liam “Skins” Tyson, and Juldeh Camara, who you played with before, right?

Yes, we were The Strange Sensations; that was just before I ran off with Allison. I began to see myself as a kind of houseguest here in America, so I decided to come back and kick some ass. I called them up, we had a couple of amazing rehearsals, and now here we are, and it’s a juggernaut, churning and humorous. It’s so funny because Juldeh is from Aftrica, and he didn’t grow up hearing Zeppelin or the Beatles, and when we start playing a song and the crowd just roars, he says to me, “Uncle, what is all this shit? I love it here.” The songs we’re playing — the whole Delta thing — is completely appropriate to African music. Maybe there’s a differential of 250 years, but the music makes perfect sense to villagers in Gambia, and [Juldeh] plays it on a one-string violin. The crowd loves it. Sometimes I hear it all through his ears, and it’s so amazing. Then we have a show like last night, and I feel the spell of The Incredible String Band come into its own. You know the word “whelm”? I love that word. That’s what I always thought music should be like: overwhelming.

Before you go, I have to ask you, as a lifelong Tolkien fan, what you thought about the Hobbit movie.

You know I haven’t seen it — I haven’t had time — but I saw the Lord of the Rings films, and I wasn’t crazy about them, mainly because they’re all about spectacle. But, you know, when I read the books, they kind of dissolved into me. I used them in songs, you know, like “The Battle of Evermore” and “Ramble On,” which, well, I just want to hold up my hand and say, “Okay, I was 21 when I wrote that.’ [Laughs.] I think the real message of the books is lost in the movies. When I first came over to America and I saw “Frodo Lives” painted on walls, I thought that was beautiful. I’ve yet to see The Hobbit, but my grandchildren love it. I’ve seen enough CGI battles; my life is already full of them.

So can we look forward to a return engagement: Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull can play Santa Barbara in 2019? I’ll book the hall.

Wouldn’t it be nice? But I think it would be better if Ian Anderson catered it — we could have salmon, because he has a salmon farm now. Bless him, I shouldn’t tease him for being so British and absurd. I think we’re all absurd in a way and blowing our own horns. I think that’s what it’s all about, blowing your own horn.

http://www.independent.com/news/2013/jun/26/interview-robert-plant/

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Austin Feedback:

Robert Plant has never been one to rest upon his golden-haired rock god laurels, ever. Throughout his solo career, he’s continued to explore seemingly diverse musical genres. While the Band of Joy and his earlier work with Allison Krause and T-Bone Burnett took a more Americana bent (and cemented his relationship with his Austin-based lady love Patty Griffin), the Sensational Shape Shifters are a return to his roots, with a psych-rock infused sensibility laid over complex yet still identifiable rock-n-roll rhythms.

Plant draws from his former group’s back catalog and delivers them with sly wit, his signature vocal runs and a mature, complex musical performance. And the show did something unusual for someone with such lofty star status. Instead of just covering the ‘hits’ for the Led Zeppelin faithful, they really blew the crowd away with new and completely re-interpreted material. Taking risks is something that musicians who are relying on past hits don’t really do, but Mr. Plant was never known for playing it safe musically, much to audience’s delight. This group needs to get busy and issue a CD as soon as possible.

Amy Price via The Austinist

http://austinist.com/2013/06/26/robert_plant_and_the_fabulous_space.php#photo-1

 For more Robert Plant Presents Sensation Space Shifters US tour updates see the TBL Facebook page – if you are attending one of the shows, we welcome your reports, pics  and clips –

email :

davelewis.tbl1@ntlworld.com

Guest appearance by Robert Plant at Patty Griffin’s show at the Wiltern on Tuesday  – June 25th:

Robert joined patty Griffin at her Wiltern Los Angeles show on Tuesday.  Stephen Humphries was in attendance  and reports ”A stellar show. All her songs are even better live. Patty’s band is really good, giving power and oomph to her songs and, on occasion, a real Band of Joy-ish sound similar to “Silver Rider” and “Monkey.” All of Robert’s band were also at  the show.

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Jason Bonham Interview:

In this interview with Aquarian Weekly, Jason talks about the JBLZE link up with Heart… 

The Led Zeppelin Experience started as something of a fun side-project for Jason Bonham, but it’s turned into an ongoing experience that has been both emotionally moving for Jason and musically and spiritually satisfying for the fans.

The show included not only stellar musicians playing the music of Led Zeppelin, but Jason mixed into the show personal anecdotes, photos, and video clips. It included an introduction and a 25-foot by 40-foot-wide center screen with accompanying side displays and LEDs with moving lights, creating the whole Led Zeppelin concert experience from an insider’s perspective that Jason would provide when he would talk to the audience, looking back at the screen and explaining what was going on, reminiscing about many personal moments.

Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience is now embarking on a new phase with a 27-city summer tour opening for Heart, which will also include a finale that brings Jason together with the Wilson sisters. They have become known for rousing renditions of Led Zeppelin classics, which they’ve often included in their shows over the years and even recorded.

The tour came about almost by chance, after Led Zeppelin was honored in Washington, D.C., last year. “It came about purely after a performance I did with them at the Kennedy Center Honors this past November,” Jason explained to me. “It aired on tv after Christmas Day. They were paying tribute to the band, with the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock and Lenny Kravitz all paying homage to the guys. I was a total surprise for them! It was very emotional; I was crying. John [Paul Jones] had just turned to Jimmy [Page], and said, ‘Jason should be here to experience this.’ Then I walked out on stage. It was a very, very nice surprise for them. I thought the arrangement was wonderful, with the choir and strings and horns. It took it to another level. It created this wonderful feel. It was a very nice touch, to do that for them.”

After Jason saw the telecast, the tour idea was born. “That came out of watching it on tv,” he says. “I saw that performance, and I thought, ‘How can we expand on that?’ So we talked about it, and they talked a lot, and talked to my management. It will be my Led Zeppelin Experience, in a shortened show. We are going to open with a 45-minute set. Then Heart will play an hour and 10-minute set. Then my guitar player and I are going to join with Heart, minus their drummer, for a 45-minute Led Zeppelin set. It will be a 45-minute Led Zeppelin extravaganza, with a choir as well.”

The choir will add an extra touch to make it a spine-tingling experience for Led Zeppelin fans, but the tour show won’t include the personal touch provided by the screens showing home movies and anecdotes normally provided by Jason. “It was difficult to put the screens on stage, because you wouldn’t be able to see them,” he relates. “I never envisioned doing it without the screen and storytelling. But when you do it for 45 minutes, and with everyone seeing how strong the band is, hopefully you will say you really like the way we play this, and come see us do this with all the extra wheels and thrills.”

The band Jason will have with him is the same as he has been utilizing for the Led Zeppelin Experience for the past year, apart from the keyboard player, as they won’t have one on stage for this tour. But the songs will remain the same (no pun intended) and definitely include some of the ones that were favorites during the previous shows. “Definitely, I feel, to me, ‘Kashmir’ has always been one of my favorites,” says Jason. “And ‘When The Levee Breaks,’ especially when I play drums with dad using the loop technology. You can’t play that without John Bonham being on stage. I play the loop, and in comes the ‘Thunder God’ himself!

“Also, ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ is one we really put a lot of passion into. That’s the thing about Led Zeppelin; they were really craftsmen, including all kinds of things, blues and everything. They were a great all-around band.”

The group includes Tony Catania on lead guitar, who has been playing with Jason for years in various projects. The vocalist is James Dylan, who actually came from a tribute called Virtual Zeppelin, a YouTube sensation that had garnered several hundred thousand views before he came on board with the Led Zeppelin Experience. On bass, former Whitesnake member Michael Devin takes the helm.

Jason originally had a bit of trepidation about doing this type of show, and only came around the idea when he saw the Beatles tribute Rain. Seeing how well it was done and how well it was produced gave him the confidence that if done right, it could be a legitimate tribute to his father and the band. And he wasn’t disappointed in that the reaction has been beyond his expectations. Many jaded reviewers came to the shows with a chip on their shoulder, but left with a feeling of satisfaction they didn’t expect, even describing the show as a touching, and very moving, experience.

When Jason started considering the idea of taking the show on the road, he wanted to discuss the concept with Robert Plant. Robert told Jason to do it because he wanted to do it, not because he felt he had to because of industry or management pressure. He advised him that if he did it well, and with a smile on his face, he would have his blessing.

“I’m amazed at the response we’ve gotten everywhere we’ve played,” he exclaims. “Especially inMontreal; that was the most amazing experience I ever had on any stage in my life. It brought tears to my eyes. The noise and the chanting! We were Led Zeppelin on stage. It made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. I mean, it was just generally an amazing experience. I never thought something I did for a little bit of fun would continue!”

http://www.theaquarian.com/2013/06/26/jason-bonhams-led-zeppelin-experience-an-interview-with-jason-bonham/

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Bonham’s Auction:

The previously mentioned entertainment memorabilia sale at Bonham’s takes place next Wednesday July 3rd

This features the Martin D28 guitar donated by Jimmy Page in aid of the ABC Trust

Sale details are here:

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20771/

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Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert DVD due:

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert staged in 1992 is to be released as a three-disc DVD set on September 2nd via Eagle Rock.

The newly remastered edition features Robert Plant’s performance of Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Billed as “one of the biggest events in rock history,” the concert raised global awareness of AIDS issues and brought in funds for the Mercury Phoenix Trust charity. Profits from the release will go to AIDS charities around the world via the trust.

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/freddie-mercury-tribute-show-comes-to-dvd/

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DL Diary Update:

The last few days has seen more intensive work with designer Mick Lowe on the Knebworth book project with more ahead next week. Have to say a blocked left ear has had me in a strictly mono hearing state which has been somewhat uncomfortable. It’s all this listening to loud pulsating rock music…I am hoping to be back in stereo mode after a visit to the docs this afternoon to clear it. The old hay fever has been back with a vengeance too this week.  Mono or stereo, Listen To This Eddie still sounded well good on the player this week – the playlist as of today and over the next few days switches to …you guessed it The Rolling Stones.

 Above – the slightly deaf TBL editor at Studio Mix Bedford earlier this week with some work in progress Knebworth book proofs. A long, long way to go yet but looking good.

Glastonbury is upon us – one of the cultural treasures of the British summer and this year The Rolling Stones headlining is a big deal. It’s a bit of a shame not all their performance is being screened live – an hour though is scheduled. It reminds me of Channel Four’s coverage of Jimmy and Robert’s performance in 1995. Just as they were ripping in to Since I’ve Been Loving You, the camera panned away to another performance on another stage. Curses!

I’ve been listening to the Rolling Stones since 1964 –that’s 48 of their 50 years  I would say they are my number two band slightly ahead of The Who and The Beatles….right from the Decca era, I’ve had a fasciation and deep admiration for what the Stones have recorded and achieved.

I saw them live in 1973 -the afternoon Wembley Empire Pool show, at Earls Court 76, Wembley ‘90 and Twickenham 2003. I have a crop of Stones LP’s , CDs, bootlegs etc many of which I’ll be pulling out this weekend. In fact I am about to immerse myself in parts of their 1970s catalogue for an imminent writing project ahead.

The variety and depth of their catalogue is plain awesome and underpinning it all is that unique groove. Their best recorded work is behind them but that really doesn’t matter too much as the Stones as a a live spectacle still works so incredibly well. That run of albums from Beggars Banquet through to Some Girls is a creative streak as good as any artist, anytime… (alongside the above named and er oh Led Zep!)

And of course over the decades, the Stones have been intrinsically linked with Zep, from Jimmy and JPJ contributing to some of the 60s material as session men (try JPJ’s strings on She’s A Rainbow), though to the New Barbarians performing at Knebworth and Jimmy’s contribution to One Hit To The Body. In fact, given his past association with them, you have to say Jimmy could well be in the running as a guest for the Glastonbury gig – the likes of Dave Grohl, John Fogerty, Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton have all performed a guest spot with the Stones in recent months. Jeff Beck has also heavily touted as a possible surprise for Saturday’s gig.

While we are on the subject, how fitting it is to see Mick Taylor back in the band as a guest contributor – his work on the likes of Sticky Fingers, Exile, Goats Head Soup etc is seminal. In  Jimmy raved about Mick’s performance at the 02 gigs last year.

So we will be eagerly watching the TV coverage here on Saturday night because like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones have been a constant in all our lives and it is utterly remarkable they are still out there doing it and doing it so well.

Glastonbury is their crowning moment.  Mick, Keef, Ronnie, Charlie and co…bring it right on home…

DL – June 28th, 2013.

The Rolling Stones One Hit To The Body

…and here’s some vintage Glastonbury footage..

Page & Plant – Glastonbury 1995;

 and finally..

To mark that week For Badgeholders back in 1977…the audio is The Song Remains the Same from the LA Forum June 21 1977…the footage is a cross section from the period when they held America in the palm of their hand…

Until next time…have a great weekend

Keep listening, keep reading…

Dave Lewis/Gary Foy – June 28th, 2013.

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