Will they or won’t they? That is the question that is always asked about Led Zeppelin reuniting for shows or a tour since when? Pretty much a week after Zep Drummer John Bonham passed away back in December of 1980.
Course Zep did the Live reunion album Celebration Day back in 2007 with Bonham’s son on the drums Jason.
For me though personally If it was to happen the drum stool should be filled by Black Crowes Drummer Steve Gorman!
Let’s rewind a bit back here….
Zep Singer Robert Plant I think maybe not so much now but I recall back around 1990 or so when Robert released the great Manic Nirvana album that year. It was announced that Plant was going to be playing a bunch of Canadian Dates with Winnipeg Manitoba being one of those dates around late September or so.
To get to Winnipeg from Thunder Bay is a 8-9 hour car ride. There is a true story floating around this site that Tbone got us to Winnipeg in just over 5 hours!(True Story)…
Anyhoo….
Myself and Tbone had a decision to make as ZZ Top was in Winnipeg as well around the first part of October. We decided to skip Plant’s show and go and see ZZ!(review of that show you can find on this site).
Our reasoning was with the massive 4 CD Zep Box set coming out before Christmas that year surely Plant/Jimmy Page/John Paul Jones would rake in a huge total dough payout and play the 50,000 seaters in 1991 right?
Wrong-o! Course it did not happen and Page got frustrated and recorded the pretty cool Coverdale/Page album which irked Plant who just kept doing his solo stuff and so it went….
Gonna happen/Not gonna….until the one-off in 2007…
Too be honest I hope it never happens now but back in the early 90’s I was all for it!
Which leads to this …
So Jimmy takes his Sunburst Gibson Les Paul and hooks up with everyone’s favourite Weed Heads Chris & Rich Robinson along with Steve-o on the Drums/Sven Pipien on Bass/Eddie Harsch (RIP) on keyboards and Audley Freed on guitar.
What you get here is Jimmy and the Crowes covering 13 Zep Tracks and 7 covers over a double disc.
This is a fantastic live album and hey great job by producer Kevin Shirley to mix the three guitars and making it sound cool and distinct!
Celebration Day opens the disc and Gorman flexes his rock muscle on those drums. Steve plays flawlessly throughout the album. Sick Again and the Lemon Song feature some real powerful smashing the skins but Gorman keeps himself in check. He’s a monster live and I can say that as when the Crowes showed up in Tbay back in 93. Gorman played the whole set on a small set of drums with his slick combed back hair,tailored suit and shades! Basically he looked like he just came out of some high-rise Wall Street building but keeps an ass kicking beat behind the Robinson Bro’s!
Chris vocally is on the money as well. Taking the gig seriously as well as he should as he’s singing Plants lyrics! One of Chris’s best vocals is the classic Zep track Hey Hey What Can I Do. That is what is cool about this is at the time there was not too much official Zep Live stuff floating around(of course now there’s all those BBC Sessions and another Box set that was all live stuff). Another highlight is Custard Pie.
A ton of Zep songs are dialed in by these guys and kudos to the Crowes as their music chops are tight on this release. Page flings his brilliance with a nice added touch of the guitars from Rich and Audley never getting in the way.
Some covers as well like Shapes Of Things To Come/Shake Your Money Maker and Tbone’s favourite Sloppy Drunk are CroweFried!
Kudos to Slim Jim as he amped back up along with some Crowes and they deliver a great live souvenir
deKe's Vinyl Reviews & More... 
I was really excited about this album but just couldn’t get into it at all. Ended up selling it. I just drew a total blank with it.
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Hey HMO fair enough though. Maybe it was more the timing perhaps but I just dug the fact that they stayed the course and just went for it. Than again i’m a sucker for live albums….
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When a band phones it in = bad show.
When a band is dialed in = great show.
Glad the Crowes opted for the latter here Deke!
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Its a great bunch of Zep N Roll….Kinda a cool combo really I mean Page he just can’t seem to get any band things going but this one even though you knew it was a one off it’s just good to hear some of these tracks!
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I don’t know why, but for some reason I never got around to listening to this. Sounds like I should. Totally agree, a Zepplin reunion now probably isn’t a good idea.
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Definitely worth checking out! I was always up to a Zep reunion back in the day and of course they always teased a bit like the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary back in 88 and Page playing on a couple of Plant tracks on Now And Zen and so the late 80’s i was buying the hype that it would happen but i think Bobby Plant has always had some kind of issue..
Than again Bonzo set the bar high ….
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Dude, Gorman is the man for the job. I agree with you and have said the same thing in the past to my friends.
I bought this album twice. I bought the original black-cover version from their website. Then, they finally did a commercial version and it had five bonus tracks. I sold my original version which may have been a mistake. The photo inside had all the members — but on the white cover reissue, Sven Pipien was edited out!
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Poor Sven! Hahaha….sounds like the anthony getting rubbed off the Halen albums on a small scale for Pipien though
Gorman is a beast on the kit! Period!
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Definitely one of my favourite drummers and it’s no wonder why he’s always been in the Crowes. He’s the foundation!
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Like I always say these Drum Dudes drive the Bus! Absolutely he’s the foundation! Plus I like the fact that he just uses a simple set up…
I’m slowly getting around to writing some stuff up on the first two Crowes albums…
Watch for them down the pike!
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Maybe we could team up on those. I listened to both recently and could definitely write something.
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Sounds good Mikey. I only started Moneymaker and haven’t even looked at Southern Harmony… a little ways off(few weeks or so) if that is ok….
Will be some good reads when those blogs get posted!
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Nice one. It never quite floated my boat either – I love the versions of Celebration Day and Custard Pie here though.
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Whats wrong with you Europeans!?? HAHAHA…..
Celebration Day is a ass kicker of track. Totally agree with ya!
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I no longer have this, but I really like it. I’d have loved to have heard a whole bunch of Crowes tracks, though.
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Listening to this again as I read your excellent post! Bit of a Crowes head, myself, especially back in the day. I dug the idea of Page and Crowes rocking through some Zep and other tunes, and I still do now. Yeah baby!
Oh, and agreed, I figure Zep oughta just let things be. Reuniting now could either be the biggest ever thing that broke the world with its awesomeness, or it could be a total disaster. I don’t see middle ground. The real question is, at this point, what would they have to prove by doing it? Not a goddamn thing, that’s what.
Hot damn I am digging me some Sloppy Drunk right now. Oh baby.
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Your right there is no middle ground with a reunion when it comes to these guys!
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