The Jason Bonham Band
In The Name Of My Father - The ZepSet

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Track list
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In The Evening (7:13)
Ramble On (5:35)
The Song Remains The Same (5:45)
What Is And What Should Never Be (5:15)
The Ocean (4:47)
Since I’ve Been Loving You (7:53)
Communication Breakdown (4:57)
Ten Years Gone (7:43)
The Rain Song (2:25)
Whole Lotta Love Medley (19:22)

John Bonham, the legendary drummer of Led Zeppelin died in 1980, but his son Jason Bonham has tried everything to keep his spirit alive musically. Unfortunately for Jason, his road to music stardom has been nearly as difficult as his dad’s struggling bout with substance abuse. In spite of Jason’s extremely polished (although unoriginal) drum style, Jason hasn’t been able to capitalize fully on his dad’s reputation. Jason & company do certainly seem to get record contracts, recording under the name of Bonham and more recently as The Jason Bonham Band. Sooner or later Jason Bonham was destined to record a Led Zeppelin tribute album and … here it is.

Performed live at the Electric Ladyland as a charity concert
Vocals: Charles West
Guitars: Tony Catania
Bass/keyboards: John Smithson
Drums: Jason Bonham

Pros: Jason Bonham on drums, the rhythm section in general
Cons: What, no Stairway? Pretty much everything else

This concert is a mixed bag. Too many times Charles West strains to hit the high Plant notes. Overall not a horrible Plant imitation, but there have been better imitators vocally. Notably, Great White’s Jack Russell. The sound quality of the concert is passable.

The guitar work has the right touch of distortion and Tony Catania doesn’t just go through the motions. He does improvise a bit on Jimmy Page’s famous fretwork, but in the end he doesn’t get altogether too creative. It’s a competent, though not entirely fulfilling effort.

The crowd sounds do not interrupt the experience like some live albums, nor does the crowd seem all that enthusiastic about the performance. Listeners might wonder for a minute if the audience was conducting a seance with Bonzo.

Since I’ve Been Loving You sounds like they forgot to tune or swap out their instruments (pitch is a bit too low), one of the worst covers of the song I’ve ever heard. There are also moments, particularly in Whole Lotta Love where feedback is not only noticeable but irritating (starting around 17:00 in the song and continuing for a minute and half).

In Communication Breakdown West’s vocals sounds like a wounded animal instead of mimicking Robert Plant’s signature moans. The vocal improvisations don’t work throughout most of this album. The drums are solid, and it sounds like John Bonham willed his spirit into his son on several occasions.

Whole Lotta Love starts with Charles West saying: “Let’s see if you remember this one?” And then the guitar proceeds to play the first lick and muffs one of the critical notes: duh-duh-da-da-<i>doink</i>. No, I don’t remember that one. What follows is a nineteen minute plus medley including parts of Dazed and Confused. This was a song Zeppelin historically would break out and go in creative directions and it’s nice to see this cover band attempting to catch this familiar Zep moment. It is reminiscent in the beginning of the version that Zeppelin used in their live Whole Lotta Love in The Song Remains The Same, only the version by Zeppelin is worlds apart better.

The song selection would also have been better if there would have been covers of All My Love, D’Yer Maker, Immigrant Song and where … is … Stairway to Heaven? Ok, I’m probably in the minority on the inclusion of Stairway, but if you are going to do a fitting tribute to Zeppelin, how can you *not* include Stairway to Heaven? It is in every classic rock top ten song of all time (usually #1). Then again, considering how the rest of this album turned out, rhythm section excluded, I can survive not hearing Stairway being butchered.

And What about he bass/keyboards by John Smithson? Besides Bonham who can’t seem to buy a hit record, Smithson is certainly a bright spot in the total performance. He’s no John Paul Jones (who was the original Zeppelin bass/keyboards) but he certainly doesn’t embarass himself like Charles West on vocals.

I’d give this effort a D if not for the fact that it was for charity and included Jason Bonham’s outstanding and nearly perfect drumming which is worth a B grade with just him doing a Zep tribute by himself.

Unfortunately, there’s no drum solo either (?!?!), so that knocks this project back on the grading scale. Really, a tribute album to a great drummer with no drum solo? Zeppelin collectors will want this but casual Zeppelin fans should seek out and buy Great White’s Zeppelin cover album instead. If you were out at a club and heard The Jason Bonham Band live then you’d probably get into this, but as a recording it doesn’t work even after the first listen, much less a second or third. Grade: C-

Did this post make you go hmm?

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