A Very Bonnaroo Space Shiftering

The Bonnaroo Festival has released A Very Bonnaroo Thanksgiving, a video of performances from the 2015 Bonnaroo festival, including Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters playing Rock and Roll.




Plant's performance is the first one, but stick around for some other great acts, including an amazing Alabama Shakes immediately after Plant.

The video will be on the Bonnaroo site until November 30th.

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Seen To Be Playing

Jimmy Page promised to do so just last week, and now here he was, fulfilling his promise "to be seen playing," a full 6-8 months early when he stepped onstage last night, Sunburst Les Paul in hand, to jam with a stage full of musicians on Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll.

Page had said he wouldn't play at Seattle's Experience Music Project Museum benefit show in honour of the guitarist, who was receiving the EMP Founders Award. But at nights end he surprised everybody by going onstage and joining a vast group of musicians, including former Firm bandmate Paul Rogers.

The evening featured a full show of music from Page's career, including Rogers performing two Firm songs and Cheap Trick's Rick Neisen playing Page/Beck era Yardbirds song Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. The house band consisted of a rhythm section of GN'R's bassist Duff McKagan and Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin, and was joined by Rogers, Nielsen, Tesla's Brian Wheat, Nirvana's Krist Novoselic and Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson among others.

Set List:

(with Rich Robinson and John Hogg)

      Ten Years Gone
      Custard Pie
      Sick Again
      Dazed and Confused

(with Jerry Cantrell and William Duvall)

     When the Levee Breaks
     Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)
     No Quarter
     How Many More Times

(with Kim Thayil and William Duvall)

     Immigrant Song
     Communication Breakdown
     Four Sticks

(with John Hogg, Kim Thayil and Krist Novoselic)

     Out on the Tiles

(with John Hogg and Rick Nielsen)

     Happenings Ten Years Time Ago

(with Paul Rogers and Brian Wheat)

     Satisfaction Guaranteed    
     Radioactive

(everybody, plus Jimmy Page and Paul Allen)

     Rock and Roll

Rolling Stone has a comprehensive take on the evening, including a testicle count count.

The

musicians:

Duff McKagan - bassist Guns N' Roses
Barrett Martin - drummer Screaming Trees
Rich Robinson - guitarist The Black Crowes
John Hogg - singer Moke
Jerry Cantrell - guitarist Alice in Chains
William Duvall - Singer Alice in Chains
Kim Thayil - guitarist Soundgarden
Krist Novoselic - bassist Nirvana
Rick Nielsen - guitaist Cheap Trick
Paul Rogers - singer/guitarist Bad Company, The Firm (with Jimmy Page)
Brian Wheat - bassist Tesla
Paul Allen - co-founder Microsoft Corporation
Jimmy Page - theraminist




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Andrew Lipke: Siddhartha

Playing for a tribute band is not necessarily the most creatively fulfilling activity for a musician. Andrew Lipke is keyboardist/guitarist/multi instrumentalist for the best Led Zeppelin tribute band on the circuit, Get the Led Out. The band travels the US in a proper rock star tour bus, travelling with a crew, a full lighting rig and enough guitars to open a guitar store. Up to five nights a week, they give two hour shows with note perfect renditions of Led Zeppelin classics and deep cuts. 

Andrew Lipke in Rochester, July 2015.

But there's more to Lipke than keyboard player extraordinaire playing other peoples songs, and he spends his time at home at home in Pennsylvania producing, playing with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Pittsburg Symphony or singing God Bless America at the Phillies game. Earlier this year, Lipke released the first of a series of albums based on the novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Hesse’s novel had an immediate impact on Lipke and he says he “always knew it would be the inspiration for something I would create.”

Lipke may be a Zeppelin devotee playing in a Zeppelin band, but Siddhartha owes very little to Led Zeppelin, even if opening track, The One does start off with a drone that Jimmy Page would approve of. 

I love the second and third tracks, Erased, which has a New Radicals pop groove to it, and Head Down Vagabonds, which defies comparisons, save a hint of Christmas Vacation in the melody. 

Then there's I'm Gone which is on the first round ballot of this years Grammy Awards in the "best arrangement, instruments and vocals" category. Even if Lipke doesn't make the final ballot, that's quite a nice recognition, and well deserved: the arrangement on  I'm Gone is beautifully orchestrated and ends with a harpsichord plus choral voices outro. 

If you see Get the Led Out coming to your town, it is a must see band. and know when you see them your not just hearing the best music, played by high caliber musicians, but in at least one case, a Grammy caliber musician.

For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Reissue of the Year: Led Zeppelin

In an interview at the Classic Rock Awards, Jimmy Page says he has no firm idea what he will be playing when he releases the long awaited follow up to Outrider, his 1988 solo album. "It's time for me to go out there and do a solo album," he said at a red carpet interview. "It's time to do another one."

He said he expected to have something ready by the middle of next year, but he did not have any firm plans yet as to what the final product might be like, or who would play on it. "I'm thinking in more of an instrumental thing, because that's basically what I'm known for," he said.

Page was on hand to receive the award for Reissue of the Year for the reissue of the Led Zeppelin catalogue.

For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Ice Station Zeppelin

During the cold months, I often introduce the podcasts as coming from "Ice Station Zeppelin." This week, John Paul Jones really travelled to Ice Station Zeppelin at the Article Circle in Vadsø, Norway on the Barents Sea.

Jones joined R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills and others at the Ice Station Vadsø Rock Festival yesterday and today. 

Here he is with Buck, Mike Mills and others playing When the Levee Breaks.

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Light of Christmas Day

The Christmas movie Love the Coopers features an all star cast that includes Olivia Wilde, John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Alan Arkin, Amanda Seyfried, Marisa Tomei and Ed Helms. Due for theatrical release tomorrow critics are giving it a moderate 6.6/10 rating on IMDB and rather sad 31% on Rotten Tomatoes.

While the cast is loaded with talent, the soundtrack features some significant talent on it's own. Grammy winning duo Robert Plant and Alison Krauss reunite to do a song, Light of Christmas Day, for the movie. It is the pairs first recording since the release of Raising Sand in the fall of 2007. Their tour in support of Raising Sand ended in the Spring of 2009,, and they have joined forces once since then, to perform at a Lead Belly tribute last April.

On his website, Plant says of the song, he and Krauss recorded it during a "... whistle stop in Nashville.. with my old accomplice... quick and fun... wow, she didn't say it's a Christmas song!"

Light of Christmas Day features the same laid back, beautifully harmonized style that featured heavily on Raising Sand. Fans of the album will l likely welcome this lovely holiday piece into the canon

The soundtrack also features songs by Bob Dylan, Sting, Nina Simone and the Otis Redding Christmas Classic Merry Christmas, Baby. It is available tomorrow.

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