Getting the Milwaukee Led Out

I spent the weekend a few weeks ago in Milwaukee, catching up with some Led Zeppelin pals, namely, Steve, the Lemon, Sauer, proprietor of Lemon Squeezings, and Paul Hammond Get The Led Out's guitarist extraordinaire and supplier of fine acoustic guitars to Jimmy Page (well, one guitar - one day I'll get that story on here).

[caption id="attachment_1959" align="alignnone" width="452" caption="Paul Hammond (left) and Jimmy Marchiano"][/caption]

I last saw Get the Led Out at Irving Plaza in New York with Steve Sauer, this time I was seeing them with Steve Sauer on keyboards. It was fun all round.

Before the show Paul took me to see his guitar rig, picking out guitars and mandolins and noodling on them while he talked. He is an impressive player, with a very light  touch and flawless technique. Onstage, that light touch translates into a player who never misses a note. His attention to detail was apparent in everything he showed me backstage, his amp set-up, his pedal set-up and the why's and wherefores of the myriad guitars he uses through the night.

[caption id="attachment_2027" align="alignnone" width="491" caption="Fools in the Rain: Steve 'The Lemon' Sauer and Jimmy Marchiano"][/caption]

On this night I had a good opportunity to watch the other half of Get The Led Out's guitar heroes, Jimmy Marchiano. Post-show it was mentioned to me that while Paul is an excellent technician, Jimmy is a brilliant pure rock and roll guitarist. If you don't take "technician" to mean "unmusical," that's not far from accurate and between the two they deliver a powerful dual guitar attack. Marchiano was particularly impressive on In My Time of Dying, giving a stunningly soulful slide guitar performance while Hammond took a break.

How good are these guys? I went with a pal of mine who had never seen them before. When we arrived I bought a t-shirt, and He was eyeing me suspiciously. You could almost hear him asking, "a t-shirt for a tribute band?" At the intermission I got up to go to the bathroom, and he says, "I'm going out to buy a t-shirt." Half a show and he was sold. The bottom line is, Get the Led Out is that good, full stop. Combining a note-for-note authenticity of the original recorded material and that magic live Zeppelin energy, they are absolutely as good as it gets.



Get The Led Out perform mostly in the North East (they are based in Philadelphia), and if they are coming to a town near you, be sure to see them.

Get The Led Out: Irving Plaza New York City

Get The Led Out are billed as the American Led Zeppelin Experience, and the East Coast's premiere Led Zeppelin tribute. They pulled their multiple guitars, keyboards, theremin and drum stool - mounted high over the drum set for percussive purposes - into New York’s legendary Irving Plaza on Friday July 15th.

With it’s smaller than usual stage and hard curfew of 10:30, Irving Plaza posed challenges to Get The Led Out, including one less set of on-stage speakers. At the end of the night, however, nobody noticed. GTLO provided a tight, clean almost flawless performance.

Opening with In The Evening, Paul Hammond gave his Stratocaster’s tremolo arm a workout, and the six piece band played a cleaner, leaner version than Zeppelin tended to play live, giving the song the live energy with a studio like performance. The message was clear, this was going to be good.

And so it was. Throughout, GTLO stayed faithful, almost to a fault, to studio performance while still managing to give the material that Zeppelin live energy. Whether it’s Hammond’s soloing on Since I’ve Been Loving You, drummer Adam Ferraioli playing the drum stool on the acoustic part of Ramble On, or guitarist Jimmy Marchiano’s tasty and note perfect spanish flavoured acoustic solo on All My Love, GTLO put in a lot of effort to replicate the songs and sound of Zeppelin.

Highlights of the night were many, including deep cuts Down by the Seaside and Night Flight, the latter of which is a personal favourite, the three guitar attack on Black Dog, an astounding force, and a three song acoustic set which featured Paul Hammond’s mandolin playing and the beautiful Diana DeSantis performing a duet on Battle of Evermore with singer Paul Sinclair.

Sinclair, it should be noted, was strong throughout. He has the ability to sing the Robert Plant vocals all night, just as strong on closer Whole Lotta Love as he was at the start of the night. Keyboardist Andrew Lipke's playing is perfect, even where John Paul Jones wasn’t, and took up some work on guitar as well. So strong are the musicians in GTLO that Lipke took the guitar solo in Black Dog, and it was almost done before I noticed: the keyboard player may have been taking the solo but the music didn’t suffer because of it.

If I had to find fault with Get the Led Out, it is a quibble. Both Dazed and Confused and No Quarter are played at the faster, studio tempo instead of the slower tempo the originals used to play them live. The slower tempos made the songs more eerie and mysterious and they are better songs at the slower tempo. This is, however, a matter of opinion more than execution, and GTLO has decided to duplicate, as close as possible, the studio versions, tempo included.

If you are heading out and feel like Led Zeppelin some night, a tribute band can be a great way to go. Get The Led Out is among the very best, offering a very close aural experience to Led Zeppelin’s records, filtered through live energy and the concert experience. I can do nothing but recommend them.

Setlist
Set One

1. In the Evening


2. Trampled Underfoot


3. Good Times, Bad Times


4. Since I’ve Been Loving You


5. The Ocean


6. No Quarter


7. Babe I’m Gonna Leave You


8. Ramble On


9. Down By The Seaside


10. Dazed and Confused

acoustic set

11. Going to California


12. The Battle of Evermore


13. Tangerine

Set Two

1. Night Flight


2. All My Love


3. Moby Dick


4. Black Dog


5. Heartbreaker


6. Living Loving Maid


7. The Wanton Song


8. Kashmir

encore

9. Over The Hills and Far Away


10. Stairway to Heaven


11. Whole Lotta Love

Get The Led Out is

Paul Sinclair - Vocals and Harmonica
Paul Hammond - Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Mandolin
Jimmy Marchiano - Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Vocals
Billy Childs - Bass Guitar, Vocals
Adam Ferraioli - Drums Percussion
Andrew Lipke - Keyboards, Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Vocals, Percussion
Diana DeSantis - Special guest vocalist on "The Battle of Evermore"

Visit them at www.GTLORocks.com

Two Led Zeppelin Blogger’s are Walking Through Times Square...

Lemon Squeezing’s Steve, The Lemon, Sauer and I were walking through Times Square on Friday. We were heading towards downtown, going to Irving Plaza to see Get the Led Out, when we ran into Elmo. Little more will be said, except to note that one of us took an ass kicking, and Elmo is one smug red furry monster...

We took in a few Zep related sites, most notably 96-98 St. Mark’s Place, where we did pictures and had an organic, all natural iced tea at Physical GraffiTea.





When we got to Irving Plaza, Nech Tytla, the guru of FBO, was standing out front. His expected attendance was iffy due to some personal stuff, but he managed to get away for a few hours and we were glad to see him.



Backstage, I met Paul Hammond, who let me noodle on his Jimmy Page Signature Model Les Paul, a sweet guitar. When Jimmy Marchiano came in Paul introduced me. I had met Jimmy outside earlier in the afternoon, and we discussed Gold Top Les Paul’s as he and I both own one. “Yea, I know him,” Jimmy says. “He owns a ’79 Gold Top.” With a quick handshake and a smile, I knew I just met someone I liked.

We enjoyed the show from right up front (review to follow) and partied with what Steve described as a MILF. Myself, I later told my wife I met a Rachel: from Long Island, her light brown hair framed a pretty, roundish face. Definitely a Rachel, although until Friday it never occurred to me the Friends character was meant to be a type. Somedays I have so much to learn.

After, the first question Jimmy asked me was, "how did the Gold Top sound?"

“Pretty good,” I answered, but I really meant, 'F*#%ing amazing.'

The band played a solid set list, the only song missing that I was expecting was The Song Remains The Same, but I’ll take the addition of Night Flight to the set list as a trade off any time.



Highlights where watching Paul Hammond and his B-Bender on All My Love, due to which I missed most of the song, The Wanton Song, which is always a great live rocker, and the acoustic set. Kudo’s to singer Paul Sinclair’s girlfriend, Diana DeSantis, who nailed the Sandy Denny part in Battle of Evermore.

Any night in New York is a good night, but a hot New York night after getting an ass kicking from a guy in a puppet suit, Getting the Led Out and discussing the merits of JimmyPage.com over beers with a couple of guys who have met Jimmy Page, and have friends who are intimates. It simply doesn’t get better.