Saturday night The Tank and Mick-Tank ( my nefew) donned our finest black t-shirts, cleanest dirty jeans and set out for the show. Now LZ-2 was stumbled upon by way of the radio blaring between CDs switches in the car, one of our local
After some burgers we set off to the club, there was a line 50 deep, with more piling up behind us so I thought these guys must be ok so I was pretty stoked. Frankly the idea of covering Zeppelin songs is not original...be definition obviously and dressing up like them circa '73 playing the exact instruments for a particular song and mimicking their mannerisms is also not original, by the very act of acting like someone else again originally is out the door! Having determined that there would be zero originality taking place helped to settle my mind because it is a very fine line between flattery and mockery, these Chicago natives pulled it off, they obviously revere Led Zeppelin to the point where they are not merely doing LZ covers they transform themselves and the result was a very strong 8.5 howitzers outta 10 from The Tank.
Where to begin...drums, having dabbled all my teen years behind a drum set I can tell you straight off that Bonham's shit is a mental and physical marathon, each song an exercise that would make a Navy SEAL need a blow. The time keeping alone is demanding, in order to achieve his sound one must beat the living shit out of the skins, add the fills, the crash blows, the goddamn foot work and I'm telling you just beating out Black Dog kicks your ass! Their Bonzo is as capable a player as I have ever seen he has almost mastered the master, I say almost because somethings can not be duplicated and obviously Bonzo was a once a millennium guy. Though he wore a wig, the "The Song Remains.." bandanna helped keep it looking real.
LZ2's singer had the one thing that cannot be found very often, his voice, this guy sounded like Plant circa '73 not a little bit but ear-illy so(...get it.. ear-illy),he could have been chanelling Plant, it was that close. Where their Plant faulted was the ocassional lyric fluff which sometimes can be overlooked but fluffing Kashmir.....really, dude everyone knows the words to Kashmir, if the19 year old girls dancing as if for a Sultan knew every word than the dude doing Plant into a mic better damn sure know the words! But over-all very little to bitch about, his mannerism spot-on, real hair, fresh perm and blonde color, clothes, the occasional Plant song intros and mid-song diversions well studied, he even did the fairly rare " If you are going to San Fransico" medley.
Jonesy, frankly this guy might be the most talented of the bunch, playing a P-Bass, a sunburst and an all black model that was really sharp. A old looking Hammond ( yes they did Stairway) and even the mandolin! Really solid player, only complaint, the wig was a little funky and he moved...moved way too much. Watch any Zeppelin footage and JPJ is the epitome of mellow, that is what bass players of his generation did, stood back and layed it down. Entwistle, Wyman...for every Jack Bruce, you can find a dozen JPJ. Hard to fault the guy too much, not shaking your ass to The Ocean or Communication Breakdown is hard to do and the dude could straight rip!
Pagey, this guy was really really good. Without the advantages of overdubs or a rhythm player he made it look and sound rather easy. Playing the intricate stuff that Page is capable of playing and acting like him cannot be easy, one must pay attention to ones playing, duck walks and facial expression take a back seat, so their Pagey was more a player, like their Jonesy, player first, actor second and again the guy pulled it off.
Again a wig I think but he had all the right gear, the sunburst Les Paul, the double neck EDS and get this even a black and white Danelectro! He did Black Mountain Side and Kashmir with it, real metallic sound, very cool. he also did the bow thing and had a theremin!!!! Only complaint and it is not his fault he looks like Paul Rudd...(see below).
Overall really enjoyable, LZ Rosa has horrible sound unless you are right in front of the band, which we were until baby-hulk-frat-boy decided to "dance" in front of Mick-Tank and myself which forced us to move outside the golden sound area. (You see dwarf-hulk got my Irish up, and not wanting to subject my nefew, to his uncle and some dwarf-hulk-boy throwing blows during Immigrant Song we moved to the back of the venue.)
Highlights...
19 year old girls dancing to Kashmir like belly dancers!
Nobody's Fault...dude could play the harp like Plant too, really cool to hear this done live ballsy but they delivered!
Moby Dick sans finger solo which was just awesome, but this big fat jerk talked the whole time to his buddy about how " I could play that, it's not that hard...blah, fucking blah..." Fat ass could barely stand without breaking a sweat, much less play Moby "fng"Dick! Dude needed a reality check bad!
Did I mention the 19 year old girls dancing....
If you get a chance to see these guys do it. They look more like LZ now but here is a sample of samples....
I can smell....Sex Panther..from here!
nice crowd....Little Texas was huge...once....there is a connection if you know the lyric...a reach, yes, but it's my blog!!
60% of the time, it works every time!
now let's go see of we can make this little kitty purrrrr.....
Keep Blasting!!
The Tank
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