News (! bong !) Page 2
Next gig is >>(click here to see bootled zeppelin's next gig) <<
The next few Big gigs that we have lined up are as follows.
2004-Reading University-19th of November (several thousand capacity).
2005-Reading Concert hall-Febuary (800 capacity)
2005-Hove (next to Brighton) Town Hall- March (700 capacity)
2005 dates:
Reading Concert Hall: 26 feb
Hove Centre: 19March
Cartoon: 2 Apr, 9 July, 29 Oct
Finn's, Weymouth: 4 June, 19Nov
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This is an old newsletter of mine from 2003.
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The new news letter is now being written by bob the monkhouse all bow down
and kneel to bob....
There is always hope,because nothing can stop the power of true love.
So then!, ladies, gents, tv's, ts's,cats,dogs,and all the beautiful creatures of the universe,ahem....sorry getting carried away already..here is the new newsletter for 01 June 2003!
The Grey Horse Gig.
Firstly a quick thankyou to everyone who came to the grey horse gig on the Sat
24th.
As per usual the atmosphere at the gig was incredibly friendly which makes for
a really personal and warm hearted gig, thankyou all.
The place was packed with people, all kinds of people of all ages and walks
of life, it's great to get a real varied crowd and see young guys and gals rockin
out to Led Zeppelin for the first time whilst standing next to older guys and
gals who were really there when Led Zeppelin first came out, some of which have
seen the real Led Zeppelin live; how lucky I am to stand in the midsts of such
a universal gathering in the name of fun, peace,music,and love,in times like
these
what better way to tribute Led Zeppelin..,mmmm..?
(and a few glasses of chardonnay, ahem...ok, I had a few more than that....,booze
never passes my lips, ahem.....possibly not completely true...ahem....anyway...;-),
I definitely spotted a few hard core Led Zeppelin fans wearing Led Zeppelin T-shirts,and boy these guys are great, seasoned professionals at making tons of noise,getting really into the music and rockin out like the floor was gonna give way if they tried hard enough, sheesh..,you can tell man, these people are the real thing, they help everyone else get loose, the vibe just carries across the audience, fantastic, so a big thankyou to the hard corers!(is there is such a word?)
We thought that we would try some new stuff for all of you at this gig, so
we changed a few bits and pieces to give the set a fresh feel, one of the changes
was to play "bring it on home" for the first time live.
What a great idea that was, everyone went crazy to that,great......
(I'm starting to sound like whispering bob harris now....., 'jazz fusion quintet
playing beethoven's fifth,one instrument per movement,........nice')
I managed to play the harmonica intro/outro right, (not bad for someone who
has never had a lesson and only been dabbling for a month or two),but I just
gotta get more soul in there,there's always room for more soul baby.
Another idea we had was to play "Black country woman" as a full intro
to the "Bron-y-aur Stomp" medley, which sounded great;
but we of the band want more, so we'll be learning even more songs and integrating
live Led Zeppelin bootlegs and recorded Led Zeppelin into our set!
(considering the amount of bootlegs that Matt and Raf have got, and the new
triple CD/DVD that Led Zeppelin have just released, we may be rehearsing new
parts...Forever..!!!..oh..oh!).
Bootled Zeppelin due to play two week tour in Germany.
Yes,that's right,hopefully we will be playing in Germany soon.
Led Zeppelin is top of the U.S. Charts and we're playing in Germany, I really
wish we had the resources to play in America,our band would go down a pretty
well in the states I suspect!
However,playing in Germany will be excellent,the only details I have on that
are that we are due to play Germany for two weeks later on this year,as soon
as I get any more details I will put them into the newsletter.
A quick reminder of the two new sections on the site.
Please remember that this website has two new sections <Reviews> and <Requests>.
Requests
So if you want to <Request> us to play a new song that we have never played
before then send in your votes to us via E-mail (or normal post if you like)
and we will play the song with the most votes at the next gig.
Go to the <Requests> section now to vote!
Reviews
The other new part of the site <Reviews>, is exactly that, to send in
your reviews of the band.
Please send in your reviews to us about anything you like, from the costumes,
to the songs, anything at all,
I promise to try to put it on the site, good or bad.Good is great to hear, but
if there is anything you don't like please tell us as it is one of the best
ways we can improve our set.
Luke get's all heated about nothing (luke throws his toys out of the pram again,oh dear ... ;-( ......)
Now I must say that I have a little sore point to speak about,
(so skip this paragraph if you just want to know about the Grey Horse Gig or
the Special Section about the mysteries of Stairway etc).
I went on the internet recently to have a little look at this site, to see how
it was doing.There were still things to be done, as always!, and if you lot
out there are unhappy with the site in anyway, please tell us so that we can
put it right asap.:-)
However; if you do a general search on the words "bootled zeppelin"
(as I did), you get a link to a site called ACE freespace virgin I think.It's
something to do with an Old Guestbook, which is a page basically full of old
conversations of E-mails sent to a site.
Somewhere on the page there is about two references to "bootled zeppelin".
Both references don't seem to make much sense at all, one of which claims to
be written by Robert Plant (which is totally unlikely), and the other which
is basically having a go at the band for no good reason.
Now please don't get me wrong, I try to respect everyone's opinion, but if I
am to do this, it seems only fair that without being biased I explain why they
might have said this......
The worst gig ever?(almost....)
(vision blurring effect to the past memories long ago).............cast your
mind back to.Saturday 16th 2002.
Possibly the worst gig we ever had to play was at the Rivoli Hotel in Worthing
in 2002.It was a little dingy, but hey, if the crowd are right then it doesn't
matter right??
Unfortunately the crowd, or to be absolutely fair, certain members of the crowd
were basically just up for getting absolutely blind drunk and causing a nasty
fight, which they proceeded to do, while we were half way through the set.Then
things just got worse and worse, and more out of control, and this one guy fell
towards the stage nearly taking one of the P.A.speakers out.
If that wasn't bad enough it ended up culminating in the entire P.A.blowing
up right before the end of our last song.It was chaos.
My best mate Duncs got headbutted by this complete stranger, and our old bass
player Dan got so angry with the entire thing being such a nightmare to play
he ended up having an arguement with the sound guys for being so inept, the
result of which was having to pull them apart for fear of them scrapping too.(I
must state that we are all far too chilled out in the band to ever cause a fight
, not that we have ever had a fight with anyone at any of our gigs thank goodness,our
style is to walk away from anything like that.The only fight you'll get in our
band is over spandex and hairspray,...ahem...only joking...,
no honestly,............okay, I know I wear blouses but that's part of the look
I promise I take them off after the gig.....ahem...........errrrmmm...anyway.....)
Toys at the ready....
Basically, the whole thing was really horrible,and I would rather not have
to do it again.
Some of the people there were cool, and I'm sorry they didn't have a chance
to enjoy the gig just as we wanted to, but from personal experience ((here we
go)) I know what small town beer boys can be like ((toys out of the pram)) when
they feel powerless, they are utterly up for a fight.
I'm not angry at them, but I pity them.
I'm sure many of us know what it is like to feel trapped.I hope they get out
to better things man, peace and good luck to them.
(the rattle and dummy are flying through the air........)
So there is the story of the worst gig we had to play, and lo and behold, the
only bleedin reference to us on the net I found was that.Life can be cruel sometimes
eh?!(especially after all of the hard work we have put into the band since then...;-(
Ah well, all I can say to that is, I blow a great big raspberry at it all......
..RRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPTHTHTHTHTHTHTHttttttttttllllllll!!!!!!!......so there.....;-))
(Houston; the toys are out of the pram.......;-))
The Grey Horse (Continued)
Anyway back to the present,and the Grey Horse gig........
(shaking of head, rubbing of eyes, stretch and yawn,WHAT? was I that boring??
ooops :-O)
However, back in the present things are so much better!!!
There was a foriegn guy (Yugoslavian I think?)who I didn't know who came to
the gig at the grey horse with a video camera, and proceeded to film the entire
gig, bootlegs of bootlegs whatever next; does this mean that there will be bootleg
videos of Bootled Zeppelin circulating in the future; I hope so, how more accurate
to Led Zeppelin can you get!???
(Oh?, you know better do you...mmmmmmm?, then send in your E-mails and letters
and tell us how you think we can better our gigs,give us your input people,we
want to know how you feel about everything we do,so come on,get those letters
in!)
Steve's keyboard solo's are getting more whistful through the darkness of No
Quarter.
I'm hoping to get him to play some of the licks from the Earls Court 24th May
1975 No Quarter, but he's also got some great chordage of his own to put in..
But now from darkness to light.From the darkest moments to the brightest.
And as Robert Plant himself likes to say, "this is a song of hope...",
which brings me nicely to "Stairway to heaven", which we played about
half way through the second set.
I love playing this song, it's one chance to really try and get a haunting,
eerie, almost lamenting and reverent feel to this track live.
(If you don't see why I feel so strongly about this particular song then check
out my Special Section(whooooo!!, that was supposed to be a ghost impression
sorry, it's tricky to make a ghost sound through the medium of computer text,
you try it...)).
There was a beautiful moment when a couple of people in the audience lit up
their lighters, and held them aloft (just like the old days...eh?(wait a minute
I'm only 29..ahem.oops) through the beginning verses of "Stairway to Heaven",
some who didn't have lighters took out their mobile phones and held them up
too, which was cool, especially when a few of them even phoned up their friends
half way though to hold their phones in the air towards the band so that we
were playing live down the phone as well!!!It may not be live by satellite,
but hey, how cool is that ,nice one people!!!!
We cracked into the big riff at the end, and finished off with EVERYONE in the
audience singing, "...and she's buying......a stairway.......to.....hea........ven...........".
It was a real magic moment,...thanks people,that was great.;-)
Although there was one strange thing happening thoughout the song which I definitely
noticed,
someone's mobile phone was ringing in the background all the way though the
song, and if I find out who it is I'll send them one of my special fish and
custard pies in the post(surreal...) for being so daft to let it ring all the
way through the song, arrrgghhh!!!!
Strangest thing is, of all the ring tones it could have been, it was Mike Oldfields'
Tubular Bells, which is??...that's right, the bleedin' theme from the Excorsist;
how much more eerie could you get?(theme from the twighlight zone by the grateful
dead?,o.k.,o.k.,but I still reckon the Excorsist is more eerie....)
The rest of the songs just seemed to get heavier and heavier, and everyone was
rockin', but I must make a mention about one particular guy who deserves to
be spoken of in the newsletter for sheer....enthusiasm, which made him stand
out for me in the crowd.
Now you've all heard if air guitaring, right? You know when your rockin' out
to a particularly heavy track and you suddenly feel the desparate need to simulate
the guitar your listening to by taking up a full on rock god/ess pose and playing
an invisible/imaginary guitar 'till your fingers burn with the very fire of
the deveeeeel himself(herself?)!!!!!RAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!(ahem..,that's supposed
to be the sound of hell's gates breaking open with the sound of rock........errrmmm.....anyway..........)
Now, when we have played at some venues around the country, definitely at the
Cartoon, (which we are playing at on the 21st of June,(at the date of writing
this 1 June 2003)),
.......and I have even seen people air drumming.(....which is cool).
But this guy was air singing!,taking up the plant pose,mic and all, and by
bob monkhouses pants, he was going for it!
Every time I looked round to my right there was another Robert Plant in the
audience screaming along to the lyrics; fantastic!......., and yes, he was one
of the hard core Zep T-shirt wearing dudes, man, those guys can rock......there
just 'aint no doubt about it........:->
All in all another incredible night all round. We had two cracking Encores
to play but time was called and we had to leave those beauties 'till another
time.....ah well....
I was lucky enough to have a good couple of people come up and thank us for
the gig, and shower us with friendliness and complements, which I am very grateful
for,one of the best parts of playing a gig is to talk to the audience after,thankyou
everyone for helping us make it a night to really remember.
Gigs coming soon.....
Hope to see you all soon at one or all of these gigs around the country-:
The Cauliflower in Ilford - Sat 14th of June.
The Cartoon in Croydon - 21st of June.
(No gigs for July as Raf is getting married!)
Gander on the green in Bournemouth - 23rd of August.
The Grey Horse in Kingston - 30th of August.
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