Rocking Thanksgiving Eve With Music Of The Mighty Zep

What could be a greater way to kick off a long Thanksgiving weekend than with a rock & roll party featuring the music of Led Zeppelin? As a longtime fan of the band, I can’t think of any! Last night, I got exactly that with Get The Led Out bringing the music of the mighty Zep to State Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ) in New Brunswick. My one word to sum it all up? Damn!

I’ve known about this terrific band from Philly for some time. When I saw a few weeks ago they were gonna groove right in my backyard, I instantly decided to see them. Calling themselves The American Led Zeppelin, Get The Led Out or GTLO doesn’t want to look like or impersonate their heroes in any other way on stage. Instead, the band wants “to bring the studio recordings of Led Zeppelin to life in concert,” according to their website. And since Zep like many other bands relied on overdubbing to enrich their recordings with multiple instrumental and vocal tracks layered on top of each other, it takes more than four musicians to replicate this sound on stage: Six in GTLO’s case.

With Zep’s fairly sizable catalog, GTLO has plenty of material to choose from. In fact, they make it a point to never repeat the same set back-to-back to keep things fresh. That way they can also perform more of the band’s songs. So what did they play last night? In case you haven’t noticed yet, the above photo collage includes an image with the line-up of tracks, which I shamelessly grabbed from the band’s Facebook page, along with a cool shot of the audience. The 2.5-hour spectacle included two sets divided by a short intermission and a terrific three-track encore – really can’t complain about that!

After all this introduction, it’s finally time to get to some music. And how better to do this than by featuring some YouTube clips. First up: The mighty Rock And Roll from Zep’s fourth studio album Led Zeppelin IV, released in 1971. The tune is credited to all four members, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant, and was a perfect opener to last night’s show.

GTLO did a great job mixing some of Zep’s furious rockers with acoustic gems. Among the latter, I thought the highlight was The Battle Of Evermore, another track from Led Zeppelin IV, written by Page and Plant. For this tune, the band brought out their terrific special guest vocalist Diana DeSantis.

With so many great songs GTLO performed last night and fortunately plenty of clips available on YouTube, it’s hard to decide what to include in this post. After kicking off the second set with a strong rendition of In The Evening, the time had come to feature the band’s kick-ass drummer Adam Ferraioli. Playing the parts of Bonham, who undoubtedly was one of the best drummers in rock history, must be pretty daunting. How did he do? Check out this clip of Moby Dick, the furious instrumental credited to Bonham, Page and Jones, which appeared on Led Zeppelin II in 1969.

Another highlight from the second set was Kashmir, the bombastic 8.5-minute tune from Physical Graffiti, Zeppelin’s sixth studio album from 1975. I will openly admit this track was an acquired taste for me, as was Zeppelin overall – somewhat hard to believe from today’s perspective! Initially, I felt Kashmir was way over the top and completely overproduced. But over the years I’ve come to dig this song, which was written by Bonham, Page and Plant. So here’s GTLO’s rendition. It was the final tune of their second set, which of course begged for more!

The three-track encore started with Over The Hills And Far Away. Written by Page and Plant, the tune appeared on Houses Of The Holy, Zep’s fifth studio album from 1973.

At that point, the show was well beyond the two-hour mark, and the time had come for GTLO to play the big enchilada I’m sure many fans had been waiting for: Stairway To Heaven, yet another tune from Zeppelin IV, credited to Page and Plant.

And since it is so much fun listening to these guys, I’m throwing in yet another clip: The final song of the night, Whole Lotta Love, the iconic opener to Led Zeppelin II. As Zep did on various occasions, parts of the song were adapted from another tune, in this case Willie Dixon’s You Need Love, recorded by Muddy Waters in 1962. Unfortunately, it took a lawsuit that was settled in 1985 to have Dixon being added to the credits, which also list Bonham, Jones, Page and Plant.

Founded in the fall of 2003, GTLO went through some changes in their early years before their current line-up: In addition to the previously mentioned drummer and percussionist Ferraiolo and guest vocalist DeSantis, the band’s members include Paul Sinclair (lead vocals, harmonica), Paul Hammond (electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin), Jimmy Marchiano (electric and acoustic guitars), Phil D’Agostino (bass, vocals) and Andrew Lipke (keyboards, electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, percussion).

A look at their bios reveals, these guys are not only true Zeppelin fans, but bring a substantial amount of talent and experience to the band. Listening to them also makes it obvious they have played together for a long time. The attention to detail is really incredible. But after all these years, the band still strives to get even closer to perfection in replicating the sound of Zep’s oftentimes complex studio recordings.

From left to right: Paul Hammond, Andrew Lipke, Paul Sinclair, Adam Ferraioli, Phil D’Agostino and Jimmy Marchiano

During a recent podcast with STNJ, Lipke talked about GTLO’s meticulous approach. “It’s a constant process of refining and distilling.” The following excerpt nicely illustrates his point. Referring to Stairway To Heaven, which he said the band has performed more than 600 times, Lipke added, “but even a year ago, we were listening again…and realized, ‘Wait a second, that’s not a single 12-string playing that part, it’s a double 12-string. Now let’s figure out who’s gonna play that other 12-string.”

GTLO has a heavy tour schedule that’s posted on their website. Between their next gig in Lakewood, N.J. this Sat, Nov 25 and the end of March, the band is scheduled for some 40 shows in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and ten additional US states, and even Mississauga, Ontario, which is close to Toronto. That’s great news to all Zep fans out there!

Sources: Get The Led Out website and Facebook page, NJST “All Access” podcast, Wikipedia, YouTube