Friday, January 4, 2013

Zepplin: Chilling with Obama at the Kennedy Centre

I don't usually go for these things….I tend to find them long winded and well, gratuitous.  As follows:

Jack Black is Jack Black and love him or hate him there aren't many out there that channel rock quiet like he does and Tenacious D most definitely is rock.  Mr. Black can throw it down with the best of them, but it's hard to take the short tubby guy seriously when he doesn't even take himself seriously, which I suppose it good and perfect for a tribute like this. That being said (short of F-bombs) he didn't dial it back at all considering the audience which is pretty cool if you ask me.

Still can't decide weather Dave Grohl or Chad Smith is my favourite drummer. Both these guys are what I call 'big arm drummers,' any dude that hits his snare from above his head is fine by me, it makes them fun to watch and loud as ass…beauty.  What can be said about Taylor Hawkins singing except; nice!

Kidd Rock, he's done some neat stuff, and frankly I constantly forget that the American Bad Ass can sing. He pulls off 'Ramble On' nicely and is some ways the slightly rough around the edges performance works well when nodding to Led Zeppelin.

Lenny Kravits is a guy that has mountains of soul, but here? Not so much. The band rocked the hell out of 'Whole Lotta Love' it but for some reason Lenny didn't quiet knock me on my ass, slightly disappointed he sure looked like he put his whole heart in to it.

Anne and Nancy Wilson with Jason Bonham playing 'Stairway to Heaven' is is where the gratuitous came in strong, still an inspired performance.  I really wanted to see Nancy play the solo even though she's not known for here electric playing but that sure would have been cool, even if she played it on the acoustic. The strings, the back ground singers, the choir, and the arrangement worked nicely with Zep's most famous song and was a fitting wrap some amazing performances.

Obama's introduction to the evening is also amazing and worth a watch. He actually talks like he listened to Led Zepplin not just reading a speech someone wrote for him.

Enjoy…I know I did.