The Music of Led Zeppelin at Benaroya Hall

Omaha and I went to the Led Zeppelin concert at Benaroya hall last Friday. This was a different affair from the one that hosted the Beatles; this cover band tried much less hard to be Led Zeppelin, and instead was simply playing "the music of Led Zeppelin as it was meant to be played, with a live orchestra."

They much better use of the orchestra than the Beatles group did; the arrangements were meant to show that Led Zeppelin could be orchestrated, not that it much of the music had been written with an orchestrated backing.

In that, it succeeded. Randy Jackson (former lead singer for Zebra) sang the songs without trying to sound like Robert Plant, yet managed to convey the emotion and power behind them with varying degrees of success. The guitarists were competent, the bassist hard working, and the orchestra was having a ton of fun. In fact, there was this one guy back in third violins who was clearly rocking out and having the time of his life. When I mentioned this on Twitter, he tweeted back! So that was cool.

At one point they had a "guest conductor," someone chosen randomly from the audience. They picked a woman in a white blouse. I don't even remember the song, only that it had an incredibly steady 4/4 beat, so it wasn't like she had to do anything but bop there in the conductor's stand. She clearly was a regular; she shook the first violin's hand before going up! I would have died of embarrassment, and I envy people with that kind of assurance that they will survive any social faux pax they might commit.

Raen didn't go. She felt like she would rather go out with friends, but that meant she missed the adorable people who were there that night. It wasn't just for old people. I felt like a bit of a creeper asking for their photo, but I had to show it to Raen.

After the show, Omaha and I went to the Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, where I had the apple compote with ice cream, and she had the sweet potato pie. Both were fantastic, but oy, that was a lot of sugar.

Anyway, yeah, Zeppelin. It was fun.

Blue Öyster Cult! The real thing this time!

So, while Omaha and I are dense-packing our lives, let me talk about going to see Blue Öyster Cult. They played the Emerald Queen Casino Showroom, to which Omaha and I have never been. I bought the tickets on a whim.

Now, you have to understand that the last time I'd seen BÖC, it had been in Orlando back in 1988, so that's, what, 27 years ago? They were touring just after the release of Imaginos, which was Al Bouchard's last work with BÖC. It was not a commercially successful album, although it is one of my favorites, mostly for it's Lovecraftian rock opera pretensions mixed with BÖC's solid instrumentals. Omaha and I saw them in a small bar, filled with people some of whom didn't even seem to know they were in the presence of rock greatness. (BÖC is credited with inventing the heavy metal umlaut, people!)

This time they were on stage, not too far away. The Emerald Queen is hardly what one would call an "arena," although it's definitely a well-sized ballroom. As it's a casino, it's technically on an Indian reservation so there was smoking and beer in copious amounts. Not that many people smoked, although somewhere through the middle of the concert someone very near Omaha and I lit up their joints, and that was a skunky experience.

I never before realized how much the band is really Buck Dharma's, and if you're very, very good, you might be allowed to play alongside him. For a 68 year old guy, he looks fantastic, and he still plays hard rock solos with an astonishing amount of verve and virtuoso talent. I need to know how he keeps those hands so functional night after night.

They played all the usual favorites, everything from Career of Evil, which means that there was nothing from later albums like Imaginos, but I guess that was okay. They were still hard rock. Eric Bloom is looking a little tired (not mention he's starting to look like the kind of guy I would date these days), and the other three members, who all joined around 2004 or so, were fine. The new guitarist is really talented, but he's not Buck.

Afterward, Omaha and I found a little bar called The Social, which surprised the hell out of us by having really excellent steaks and a potato bisque to die for. We made it home by midnight.

I hope I don't wait another 27 years to see a favorite band again.