I’ll never see Led Zeppelin in concert. Seeing the mighty Zep might have been an option during my earliest concert-going days as they had just come out with the album In Through the Out Door — which I picked up the week of release with its nifty brown paper bag hiding the actual cover that showed one of multiple perspectives on the same bar scene depending on which one you got — and a North American tour was planned. The September 1980 death of drummer extraordinaire John Bonham and resulting end of Led Zeppelin as a going concern shattered possibilities for me however. I was left with my numerous viewings of the concert film The Song Remains the Same during late-70s midnight showings as my “certificate of participation,” doomed never to take home the blue ribbon.
Not to imply that The Song Remains the Same was a booby prize. It remains my all-time favorite concert film to this day and, given that back then concert films were experienced up on the big screen channeled through monstrous theater sound systems, it is unlikely to be unseated. I saw it enough times to eventually be comfortable closing my eyes and allowing myself to just float along during long Jimmy Page guitar solos without fear of missing something in the visuals. I considered it a reasonable second-best to the real thing.
Little did I know that the true next-best alternative to an actual Zeppelin show would offer itself up to me willingly on a steamy 25th of June in 2013 at the sadly-named Jiffy Lube Live concert venue in tree-lined Bristow, Virginia. And equally surprising, it was not opening band Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience that claimed the honor, although it was a blast to see Jason mimic his beloved father’s skins work while surrounded by a group of highly talented sound-alike musicians, to include a spot-on, Plant-channeling vocalist. No, the real “alternative” Led Zeppelin appeared in the form of Ann and Nancy Wilson’s Heart, specifically during their six-song, all-Zep encore, which also saw Jason Bonham return to the stage to repeatedly pound Thor’s hammer into our skulls via genetically-engraved Bonzo-style drumming.
Photo Credit: http://www.ocregister.com/tag/soundcheck/led-zeppelin
These two ladies do Zeppelin better than anyone, and in no way do they come across as a simple tribute. They honestly own these songs. Their Zeppelin soul-stealing is hard-earned and is not a Johnny-come-lately undertaking. They have been daring to cover the mighty Zep dating back to the very days when the four behemoths of hard rock were still personally striding across the landscape. For my part, I had seen Heart do Rock and Roll live back in 1987, and had heard their version of Black Dog on one of their live albums. I had also seen the YouTube video of their December 2012 Stairway to Heaven performance at the Kennedy Center Honors that moved Robert Plant himself to the brink of tears (see below). Even so, I still found myself unprepared for Ann and Nancy’s Led-laden brilliance.
The Heart sisters first offered up a chilling duet on The Battle of Evermore before bringing on their backing band made up of a mix of their own and Jason Bonham’s players to literally take possession of The Song Remains the Same, The Rain Song, The Ocean, and Kashmir.
They ended the evening’s splendor with their perfect – PERFECT! – take on Stairway to Heaven. Stairway to Heaven in its original version is an amazing, universe-expanding song that fully deserves it legendary status. It may be the fact of its having become metastasized into every living rocker’s DNA however that makes the idea of a worthy cover so daunting and exhilarating at the same time. Ann Wilson kills Stairway to Heaven, and I mean “kills” in the most magnificent and exalted sense. She kills it so profoundly that the act conjures coincident resurrection; the mythological phoenix dies and ascends simultaneously! I have no shame in admitting that a few tears of joy streaked my face as the May queen cleaned and this songbird sang.
Here’s the video of Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart performing Stairway to Heaven at the Kennedy Center Honors on December 26, 2012, in case you require convincing:
What made my “Zeppelin” experience even more epic was the fact that Heart is an awesome band in its own right, with excellent songs and huge talent that others would sell their souls to attain. Having seen them live twice now – in 1987 and 2013 – I am a bigger fan than ever. From Nancy’s epic acoustic guitar intro and playing on Crazy on You to the heft of the riffs and Ann’s vocals in Barracuda and Heartless, these women can rock. I should probably post again in the future and give them their well-deserved, self-composed due. In the meantime, a few reminders follow:
Crazy on You:
Barracuda:
Heartless:
Rolling Stones at Verizon Center, June 2013 – Washington Post
It took 50 years – or 49.5 years if you solely count the time I’ve actually been alive – but I finally saw the Rolling Stones live. It was on the 24 June 2013 final gig of the U.S. leg of their “50 and Counting” tour at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. and it was freaking fantastic. I say that with no caveats or qualifiers. The Stones put on a great show, the crowd was into it, and yours truly was ear-to-ear grinning for the entire two-plus-hour concert.
Talk about a love fest, the event was proof positive of music’s ability to bring people together. In a microcosm certain to have been repeated thousands of times throughout the arena, to one side I had a 60-something couple that I could easily see spending their early mornings sucking down coffee served by Flo-the-waitress at the local truck stop with my parents, to the other a nerdy 20-something Latin American diplomat who looked young and uptight in his khaki pants and button-down collar, to the back a couple of 30-something, obnoxious a-hole businessmen loudly and annoyingly talking deals on their cell phones, and in front some 50-something hippy chick gibbering on about how many times she’d seen the Stones before. Add into the mix a doofus, introverted fanboy in shorts and a black concert tee (i.e. me) and we had a pretty good mix. Expanding the view beyond those within arm’s reach, I saw many parents who had brought along school-age kids, a wide variety of ethnicity and race, and an economic blend ranging from upper middle class to filthy rich (the ticket prices were embarrassingly high – as in so high that one is loathe to admit how much one paid given global/social woes). Any differences among us were quickly forgotten once the band came out and began to play.
And play they did. This was not a band going through the motions. Of course the Stones are wrinkled nowadays, but the beauty of this one-of-a-kind group is that they were wrinkled in their ’70s heyday too. Looking rough is their trademark. If anything, they are looking ever cooler as they marinate in their juices. On stage, they sing, play, and move like a well-oiled, arthritis-free machine. Don’t take “well-oiled” to mean tight, though. They remain as loose and greasy live as one could hope thanks to the jangly guitar playing of Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. These two guitar titans amaze with their ability to drive the musical train via their boogie riffing while concurrently seeming to hang on to the caboose for dear life with their castaway fills. Each was granted ample opportunity to offer up raunchy, just-behind-the-beat solos over the course of the show that further reminded us we were in the presence of rock & roll divinity.
Mick Taylor’s guest appearance mid-show for an extended take on Midnight Rambler was another highlight among continuous highlights. His melodic, soaring soloing reminded us both of what we had lost when he exited the Stones in ’74 and what we had gained with the entrance of Ronnie Wood’s “sloppier” style. The smiles among the band and Taylor himself suggested they were honestly having fun as they worked through the chugging classic. Mick Jagger’s sweet harmonica playing on the tune added to the joy.
Speaking of smiles, Keith’s was infectious and screamed sincerity all night long. I don’t know how a guy of his rock and roll stature can be humble, but that is exactly the vibe he emanated as he stepped to the front to sing two songs, You Got the Silver and my personal all-time Stones favorite, Before They Make Me Run. He actually seemed like a shy little kid as he accepted the crowd’s thunderous applause after finishing his showcase.
Mick Jagger is not from this planet. The way he moves, the way he fronts, and the way he attracts attention suggests other-worldliness. Sure, he acts like he’s onstage alone despite having arguably the greatest band of all time behind him, but that turns out to be freaking perfect. Keith and Ronnie need to play from behind in order to create their loose, comfortable grooves. Charlie Watts’ subdued manner as he sits behind his tiny drum set at the back adds as much to the distinctive beat he asserts as does his actual banging of sticks on skins.
A 50-year career, coupled with a tour on the back of a recently-released and aggressively-marketed greatest hits record, meant that this show was mega-hit heavy; no deep dives into “lost” album tracks or forgotten classics. I’ve got 195 Stones songs in my collection alone, and I probably own only about half of their studio albums, so there was never going to be a set list that would include everybody’s most coveted tune. For my money however, it didn’t matter. This was an overall happening, rather than a collection of song performances. Having seen the Stones live has made the subsequent listening to any and all of their output a new, even more enjoyable experience. While they remain the legendary and untouchable Stones, they are now also those happy human dudes I watched bounce around the stage that one time.
I sincerely hope this wasn’t the last chance I’ll ever have to attend a Rolling Stones concert, but if it was, I’m content for having had the glorious opportunity. Separating the band from the legend is impossible, but who needs to? Now, I have the joy of being able to claim to have personally been part of it.
After roughly a year delivering newspapers starting in 1977, and then a few months with my buddy Gary cleaning a downtown law office in late 1978, I got my first “real” job in 1979 at the age of 15. I was hired as a ticket-taker/usher at the Orpheum movie theater in Ogden, Utah, thanks to the fact that Les, the 18-year-old manager, had been one of my mom-the-teacher’s students in junior high. Utah law at the time allowed kids to obtain a motorcycle license at 15, even though normal driver’s licenses were not issued until the age of 16. With my little Suzuki 125 and my $2.47 hourly wage, I was freer than ever to indulge my growing musical obsession.
(While the U.S. federal minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90 per hour, the theater only had to pay me a wage equal to 85 percent of the minimum because I was a full-time student and worked only 20 hours per week.)
There was nothing esoteric about my musical tastes when I first began working at the Orpheum. Besides a backwards-looking appreciation for Elvis and The Beatles, I otherwise shared my peers’ love for Rush, Kansas, Queen, Aerosmith, and other such “mainstream” hard rockers. I also remained a big KISS fan, although by 1979 that particular proclivity was safely closeted away (as I’ve written about here). By the time some big corporation bought the Orpheum 18 months later and I went on to new minimum-wage adventures, my aural horizons had expanded considerably. This was mainly thanks to 21-year-old Orpheum co-manager, professional drummer, and coincidentally my down-the-street neighbor, Rick. I’ve posted previously about Rick’s generosity in hipping me to the various offerings of guitar hero Ronnie Montrose, but I also have to thank him for Be Bop Deluxe, Tommy Bolin, and Al DiMeola, among many others.
Beyond introducing me to new recorded music however, Rick also served as my initial guide to the joyous world of rock concerts. Our first shared concert-related experience came soon after we learned that The Who would be playing Salt Lake City in late April 1980. This was The Who’s second tour following the death of original drummer extraordinaire Keith Moon and, besides a few new songs recorded for the soundtrack of the Quadrophenia movie, the band had not put out any new music since 1978 album Who Are You, on which Moon had played. Given the dearth of new music, there was a sense that the 1980 tour could be the group’s last and as a result demand for tickets was high.
To ensure we got tickets the morning they went on sale, Rick suggested we grab sleeping bags and warm clothes and camp out overnight in front of the only announced ticket vendor in Ogden, a proposal accepted enthusiastically. It was thus that we ended up huddled together with about 30 other nut cases in front of the now defunct Toad Tape record store through a cold-as-hell Utah winter’s night in the last week of March 1980.
Between our 9:PM arrival and the 9:AM store opening the next day, we were treated to both a dusting of snow and regular visits from “concerned” Ogden City police officers who just wanted to ensure none of us died of exposure. (The repeated ID checks and warrantless rousting of our pockets to check for drugs were simply for our own protection, of course.)
Ill prepared for the plunging temperature, and considerately reminded by the caring coppers that sleeping on a public sidewalk was illegal, we dedicated Who fans sought any distraction we could find to
take our minds off our exhaustion, discomfort, and impending hypothermia. Luckily, one among the crowd had a portable tape deck and an extensive collection of two(!) tapes that got played over and over again, providing a welcome rhythm to which we were able to sync the chattering of our teeth. Although both tapes were new to me at the time, they contained excellent music that I dug then and have continued to dig in the intervening years.
The first tape played by our de facto entertainment coordinator was Van Halen’s brand new album Women and Children First, which had just been released that very week. I had been a Van Halen fan since their first self-titled record came out in 1978, accompanied by rampant, if ridiculous, rumors among my junior high pals that the band was actually KISS without makeup. Brushing wet snow off my sleeping bag in front of Toad Tape, I was struck by how much heavier Women and Children First sounded than the band’s first two LPs. The songs seemed to have more of a bottom end and to be denser than previous VH tunes. In fact, the new sound fit that cold winter night perfectly as it was easy to envision Eddie Van Halen’s muscular guitar riffing as the soundtrack to a hopped-up, heavy-duty snowplow pushing its way through huge snow drifts on some isolated Alaskan highway. I clearly remember experiencing “Romeo Delight” as one of the hardest rocking songs I had ever heard.
Women and Children First would again etch itself onto my frontal lobes two years later when the album happened to be playing in the background when, as a high school senior, I caught an inadvertent glimpse (or two or three) of my super fox neighbor Shelly’s pubes peeking out of her tight cheerleader panties during a senior-class-only sleepover in the school gym. It’s truly amazing how accompanying music can burn itself so deeply into the fabric of a memory…
Romeo Delight:
In best Monty Python tradition, our musical director’s second offering was something completely different; Candy-O, the sophomore album by The Cars. As removed from the hard rock riffing of Van Halen as one could get and still be in Top 40
radio territory, The Cars’ new wave pop rock was not the kind of music a proud heavy rocker would champion in 1980. Said heavy rock purist would more likely defer such “light” fare to his younger sisters and their bubblegum tastes.
A wintry night with no other options on the menu can lead a music snob to get off the high horse however, and via repeated listenings to Candy-O there on the frozen cement, I was shocked to discover that awesome guitar skills were not the sole purview of the long hairs. I discovered an album drenched with sweet electric axe workouts; the fact that they were tucked within what then sounded like jittery keyboard chirps and cheery non-Levi’s-wearing robot grooves did not diminish their weight. I was flabbergasted; The Cars were a guitar band!
I bought Candy-O and The Cars’ self-titled first album within a couple weeks of the Who camp-out, and owned a stolen cassette copy of third Cars’ album Panorama soon afterward (thanks to childhood friend Gary who, in hindsight, seems to have had a habit of bequeathing me stolen tunes). Seeing the Candy-O album cover upon making my purchase was just a happy fringe benefit.
Candy-O:
In the end, The Who unexpectedly turned out not to be my first ever rock concert. When we finally got to the counter inside Toad Tape after our all-night vigil, Rick pointed to a poster behind the cashier and suggested that we buy tickets for both The Who and some guy named Robin Trower that I’d never heard of. Trower’s Salt Lake City stop on his Victims of the Fury (!!) tour was to take place a couple of weeks before the The Who show, so Mr. Trower would end up breaking my concert-going cherry. But that 33-year, 26-album, four-live-show spanning story is for another post, as is the glorious tale of the eventual Who concert itself.
Going through the slow dissolution of your parents’ marriage is not a lot of fun for anyone, but I think it can be especially tough when it happens concurrently with your own adventures in puberty. I don’t have a lot of specific angst-filled memories related to the divorce, although I know that, from my youthful perspective, the ultimate separation was the welcome finale to what had been an unpleasant few years in a household weighed down by shouts, cynicism, resentment, and sadness. What I do remember in great detail from that time period however is the blooming of the intense love for music that still significantly defines who I am even now, three and a half decades later.
I ain’t no psychologist, but it seems reasonable to suspect that my discovery of the joys of shutting myself alone in my room to spin record after record may have reflected not solely a reaction to the unquestioned power of the tunes themselves, but also a subconscious desire to simply “be removed.”
At some point in our waning interval as an unbroken family, my two younger sisters and I were happily dropped off at the house of our Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen while our parents enjoyed a weekend away. Although details are sketchy in my recollection, it must have been an especially rough patch in my folks’ denouement as I recall Uncle Bob taking me aside as the eldest and inquiring as to how we kids were doing. On the other hand, another memory of that weekend is Uncle Bob becoming fixated on my pubescent zits and embarrassing the hell out of me by trying to teach me remedial face washing techniques, so who really knows what deeply-hidden traumas have contributed to that particular weekend being etched into my psyche.
Uncle Bob, my pop’s twin brother, was a successful doctor and medical administrator and my sisters and I thought of his family as wealthy and their home as pretty fancy. The house was big enough that I was able to isolate myself downstairs while my sisters and our three cousins, all of whom were younger than me, played upstairs or in the yard. It was during one of these self-segregations that I discovered and became infatuated with my uncle’s big reel-to-reel tape player. Uncle Bob cheerfully taught me how to operate it and showed me where he and my aunt kept their tapes.
Among piles of classical recordings that meant nothing to me, I came across two 120-minute tapes entitled “Beatles 1” and “Beatles 2.” While The Beatles had broken up maybe five years earlier, I was well aware of them and had heard many of their most popular hits on the radio throughout my childhood. As such, it was obvious to me that those were the tapes I should listen to.
I loaded “Beatles 1” onto the tape deck and settled into what I recall as a big, round
Papasan-style chair to listen. While most other memories of that weekend are clouded and patchy at best, I remember laying there for hours listening to that music as if it were yesterday. I still clearly recall my giddiness each time a never-before-heard Beatles song would waft out of the speakers and my happy surprise at discovering that the tapes automatically reversed to play side two as side one ended. Over the course of those 2-3 days, I went downstairs alone to listen to each of the 2-hour tapes more than once and each time I remember feeling unambiguously happy and unencumbered.
Three Beatles songs that I heard for the first time that weekend really imprinted on me. “I’m Only Sleeping” with its moody bass, eerie backwards guitar fills, and airy backing vocals remains a favorite to this day. “Doctor Robert” also stood out, likely as much because it was about my Uncle Bob (Robert), the doctor, as because of the wonderful harmony vocals, blissful church organ underpinning the “well well well you’re feeling fine” lyric, and the gleeful guitar lines. Finally, “I’m So Tired” with its catchy, easy-to-remember lyrics became my go-to song for shower singing, an honor it has retained for 35-plus years now.
In the near-term aftermath of that weekend at Uncle Bob’s and my music-as-escape revelation (although not understood as such by me at the time), I firmly planted my feet on the path that would lead me to become the music obsessive I am today. In an explosion of flowing epiphanies, I discovered heavy music, became a KISS fan, harangued my Mom sufficiently to get her to gift me the Beatles’ Revolver and Rubber Soul albums for the first-post-split Christmas, and developed a preference for a closed door.
Uncle Bob died in 1989 in a scuba-diving accident. He was three years younger when he departed this world than I am as I write this. How I wish I could share the above story with him now. I’d like to thank him for letting a confused young punk screw around with his fancy tape machine and especially to let him know that me, my sisters, and my parents are all now doing well and feeling fine. I miss you, Doctor Robert…
Dr. Robert:
With the album Destroyer still fresh in the racks, I fell big for KISS in 1976 at the age of 12. I certainly wasn’t alone among my friends, although my immediate head-long dive into the deep end of KISS worship did make me the most adamant fan in my peer group. KISS became my obsession. I enthusiastically bought a pair of homemade Paul Stanley platform boots from a
buddy for five bucks, became a dues-paying member of the KISS Army, and covered nearly every bit of open wall space in my room with KISS posters and magazine cutouts. (The few spots not hosting KISS were dedicated to Farah’s famous red swimming suit and some other Charlie’s Angels-related “artwork.”)
More importantly, I sought out the music and played it incessantly. Besides Destroyer, I quickly owned ALIVE! and the first three studio LPs, KISS, Hotter than Hell, and Dressed to Kill. When Rock and Roll Over came out in November ’76, I successfully convinced my parents to drive me to the record store on the day of release to buy it, heroically withstanding pressure from an older record store clerk who tried to convince me to purchase instead the also-just-released Leftoverture by Kansas. Rock and Roll Over instantly became my favorite KISS album due to what seemed to me to be its evolution to an even-harder rock sound than its predecessors, not to mention the cool cover that could be traced onto blank paper and colored over and over again.
By the time KISS were to release their next album roughly eight months later, I wasn’t just fan, I was a fanatic. Rock and roll adolescents are fickle however and, after solely a year and a half of being “cutting edge” in my KISS fandom, I found myself no longer at the forefront of cool. Now teens (13!), the kids my age weren’t into that cartoony KISS crap anymore; real rockers were into the more “adult” and complex music of bands like Queen, Rush, and the aforementioned Kansas. (No, punk didn’t make much of an impact in Ogden, Utah in 1977.) I nonetheless steadfastly stayed on the KISS train, albeit in secret. I basically went into the closet, a closet the doors of which were plastered with KISS posters.
Having to hide my KISS addiction did not mean I wasn’t going to continue actively getting my fixes though. I sat my 13-year-old arse on the city bus and headed downtown to the record store to get the Love Gun album within days of its summer ’77 release. All was well as I laid down my money and walked out of the store with my new treasure in an LP-sized paper bag folded and stapled shut with the receipt inside (likely to keep me from slyly slipping an additional album into my bag on the way out the door – when did we stop trusting the youth?). I hopped back on the bus and began counting the minutes until I could get back home and lower the needle on my spinning prize.
Summer meant no school, and no school meant lots of kids out and about, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when, just a few blocks into my return, three sprogs from my grade got on the bus. We were all pals and so they happily came right over and sat with me. Recognizing the potential stinking poo I was carrying (from a cool-conserving perspective), I tried to quickly slip the bag under the seat, but it was not to be. They saw and were straightaway interested in the package, much to my chagrin.
It was, of course, the coolest of the three boys who first asked what album I had bought. I knew I couldn’t answer honestly and maintain any junior high school respectability so I blurted out an unrehearsed lie. I told the threesome that I had handed over my cash 
for the album Hair of the Dog by Nazareth. For an off-the-cuff spew, it was actually a pretty impressive choice on my part. At the time, Nazareth was a band that many 13 year olds in Utah had vaguely heard of, but which was still unfamiliar enough that my owning one of their albums made clear I wasn’t just some lame follower of the pack. It suggested I was a true hard rock connoisseur.
My pride in my cleverness was short-lived however as one of the kids remembered that Hair of the Dog was the album with the “super awesome drawing of an evil dog or something” and demanded that I pull the LP out of the bag for all to admire. Flummoxed, I started to mumble about how I’d have to walk eight blocks to my house after exiting the bus and an open bag could prove unwieldy to carry. Even I didn’t believe that one however, so I added a ludicrous story about being afraid to lose the receipt stapled inside the bag; “Um, you see, my mom lent me the money to buy the LP and she is gonna demand evidence of its price.”
I sensed my pals could detect that something was starting to smell. It was also clear that my well of convincing lies was running dry. So, with barely a thought, I launched myself toward the door of the bus and announced “this is my stop” even though in reality my stop was still 4-5 blocks away. To my relief, the three amigos good-naturedly bid me farewell, while staying on the bus themselves. I’d eventually have to deal with the last-second request by the coolest kid as I stepped off the bus that I let him borrow the Nazareth album sometime, but I had the remaining weeks of summer to figure that one out. For now, I had survived the trial with my dignity intact and at the cost of only a few extra blocks on foot.
Much like Peter in the New Testament, I did feel shame at having disowned KISS even before the Ogden City bus had crowed
three times. I asked the band’s forgiveness via shelling out additional hard-earned coin for a KISS transistor radio, iron-on KISS Army patch, and the Alive II double album before the year was out. As time went on, I managed to gain more confidence in my continuing KISS veneration and even had the courage to play the song “Shock Me” from the Love Gun album to anyone who would listen in an effort to preach Ace Frehley’s guitar genius to the unenlightened masses.
As can be seen in the below picture of the very desk at which I crafted this masterpiece, I no longer hide my passion for KISS. (Thanks again for holding on to those posters, Mom!) I like what I like, cool be damned.
And there’s the lesson for the kiddies: Stand up for your favorites no matter how uncool they may be in the moment. Rest assured that 40 years from now, nostalgia will make those old picks “retro cool” — ok, maybe not as cool as KISS, but still cool nonetheless …
Victim of the Fury 