England’s "Sunday Mirror" has finally published what insiders have known for six weeks. Robert Plant said no to a Led Zeppelin reunion.

How could he do this? The touring industry needs Led Zeppelin, the fans are ENTITLED!

Bullshit.

Robert Plant employed the artist’s prerogative, which has not been seen in a top level act, never mind a classic rock act, this century. While every has-been known to man is touring at an inflated ticket price on a victory lap that would make those in attendance cringe if they heard the tapes after the fact, Robert Plant is saying let it be. To leave Led Zeppelin in the seventies. When they wrote the book, when rock excess was married with music critics pooh-poohed, but the little boys and girls understood it was the shit, as their kids now believe also.

YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SEE LED ZEPPELIN! It does not come with your DNA, does not come with purchasing the tracks. You don’t get to do everything in this life. Whether you made bread as a hedge funder or your parents indulged your every whim. The O2 show was a one time event, even though no one believed it. Not Jimmy Page, not John Paul Jones, not even ME!

You had to be there. That was the expression when Led Zeppelin ruled. You had to awaken before dawn to line up to buy tickets. There was no DVD, what you felt at the moment was all you got. A high you might remember forever. Music wasn’t entertainment, it was life ITSELF! Not a single parent took his kid to a Led Zeppelin show. There was none of the father/son bonding of Stones shows today. Rock and roll isn’t family entertainment, it’s all about sex and drugs. If you didn’t partake, YOU WANTED TO!

Led Zeppelin’s music was created in this hot house. Jimmy Page was not the guy playing "Whole Lotta Love" at the New York Stock Exchange, rather he was holed up in the Ryatt House allegedly dripping wax on little girls. Not that that was the band’s only infraction. Can you imagine an act today toting around the mud shark story? Have you even LISTENED to "Mothers Live At Fillmore East"? There was a cult culture, which was not on AM, not on TMZ, that only fans could be aware of, AND THEY WERE!

If you were too busy being safe and you missed Led Zeppelin in their ten year run, you deserve the silence. If you’re a kid and you’re wetting your still-attached diaper, I’m telling you I never got to see Babe Ruth. And therefore his legacy looms even LARGER! Hell, Joe DiMaggio would show up at Yankee Stadium, but he didn’t take center field and show us how much he’d lost.

That’s what a Zeppelin tour would be like. It would taint our memories of the seventies. Those hot chicks with their tits hanging out… They wouldn’t be wearing tank tops. And they would be too heavy to sit atop their boyfriends’ shoulders. Boyfriends with bad backs, pot bellies and no hair. Sure, it’s not a crime getting old, but we don’t get to go back to high school and we don’t get to see Led Zeppelin!

They had to change the key. Robert’s voice is different. This is no problem if he’s singing new material with Alison Krauss, but you’re going to expect "Stairway To Heaven" to be as good as the original, TRANSCENDENT! And do you want him to sing shirtless again too? Mick Jagger prancing around in those tiny outfits after working out ad infinitum is a joke. It makes you turn your head. I won’t go to a Stones show. To think that I once thought they were…the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Even though they were uneven as hell. Now they’re a P.T. Barnum act. Yup, you’re a sucker if you go.

Robert Plant has not had plastic surgery. He grew up, can’t you?

Part of being a rock and roll fan is believing. But we haven’t been able to believe in the acts in eons. They all make deals with corporations, they won’t take a political position. Their handlers say not to hurt their earning power, not to alienate potential ticket-buyers. These aren’t rock and rollers, these are BUSINESSMEN! I can’t believe in THEM!

As for Jimmy Page? I guess it’s incumbent on him to find new players and make NEW MUSIC! Instead of traipsing around the world living on fumes, giving the people what they want. And they don’t want new Zeppelin music, not of the quality of "Walking Into Clarksdale". Why tarnish the legacy? Wasn’t "Coda" bad enough?

I expect sometime in the future the band will do another one-off. To honor someone’s memory, probably not for a charitable cause, Zeppelin was never charitable. This is fine by me. Every fifteen or twenty years is okay. Kind of like a family or high school reunion. Only this time, I’M GONNA GO! Why schlep all the way to London, spend thousands of dollars, when the band will come to my hometown and I can DRIVE THERE? That’s the way it is with all these acts. They create a buzz, they test the waters, then they say the public demands they go on the road. No, they want to get paid. And all their handlers say to do it, the agents and managers WANT THEIR PERCENTAGE!

For far too long, the tail has been wagging the dog. The businessmen have held sway over the artists. Don’t lament that Robert Plant won’t reunite with his bandmates as Led Zeppelin, cheer out loud, that there’s one Greek God rock star left who isn’t beholden to the money, who’s not worried about giving the public what IT wants, but is only concerned with what HE wants!

Robert Plant says no to Led Zeppelin world tour and £100m

The live music talk

There’s nothing like the rush of music.

Used to be you went to the show, shared the excitement with the throng in attendance, went home basking in the glow and…told a few friends over the next couple of days. Now you go, and if you’re not sending a message from your BlackBerry FROM the show, as soon as you get home you e-mail everybody you know. A concert that happens in New York City can have GLOBAL REACH!

If you read Jon Pareles’ review of the Winwood/Clapton show in the "New York Times" you get a skewed view. You see reviewers are dispassionate, they’re not FANS! Why the fuck are they going ANYWAY? The question is, if you love the act and couldn’t go, WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE THERE?

And I can tell you, to be in Madison Square Garden last week was akin to having your head explode, if you’re a fan of Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton. If you know every lick of the first side of the one and only Blind Faith album, everything from "Had To Cry Today" to "Presence Of The Lord". How do I know? From the enraptured e-mail I received from everybody in attendance. But now I know they were right, because I’m listening to an MP3!

I can’t tell you how many times I listened to "Can’t Find My Way Home" on headphones lying on the floor of my bedroom. Who was this angel singing? Yes, Stevie Winwood sounded like he was testifying from heaven. No one on earth sounded like this. And the acoustic guitar and percussion, even the "woos"… "Can’t Find My Way Home" is a MASTERPIECE!

Do you have the Bonnie Raitt version? Done with John Hammond, Jr. and Lowell George? I got it the very first day I used Napster. Listen to the guitar licks, only Lowell can play them this way… And Bonnie has a way of singing that makes you believe she wrote the song. She sings a song with EXPERIENCE!

Alison Krauss does a pretty good take.

But I love the instrumental version by this guy Jim Wilson. It’s got all the dreaminess, the ethereal feeling of the original.

Which, of course, was written by Stevie Winwood forty years ago. But played live with Eric Clapton last week.

I got an e-mail asking me if I wanted the 2/25 show. Did this guy have access to the soundboard? I didn’t think so. I figured sound quality would be sketchy. So I told him to e-mail me only ONE TRACK!

Little did I know he’d pick the classic, my all time favorite. The file said "Can’t Find My Way Home".

I don’t import stuff like this immediately into iTunes. I fire it up in QuickTime to check it out. And when the guitar came in, right after the crowd noise, I was stunned, the audio was great, it was JUST LIKE BEING THERE!

What was being there like? I can tell from listening. You can hear the audience going up and down in time with the music. You can hear the assembled multitude roar as the famous guitar lick fills up the arena.

This is the Clapton arrangement. That he cut on "E.C. Was Here". It’s Stevie’s song, but Eric plays it live. Eric’s arrangement is less angelic and more an amble through the garden. But now Stevie is singing…

Ever so subtly you can hear the audience sing along in the background. Well, not that subtly. It sounds like a religious revival meeting. Which, in fact, it is. Of souls who lived through an era when rock and roll was king. And when Stevie finishes singing the chorus, the audience breaks into spontaneous applause!

This take of "Can’t Find My Way Home" won’t get Top Forty airplay. Not even on a rock format. Satellite will play it, but nobody is listening. Not in quantity! Does that mean the song’s not good, that no one cares? NO, it just means that the paradigm has shifted. It’s not about growing a small cadre of fans into a conflagration overnight. Rather, it’s about satisfying a niche, and growing this niche SLOWLY! Not at a snail’s pace on purpose, but because THAT’S AS FAST AS YOU CAN DO IT!

I assume these shows were recorded for a live album. Maybe a DVD. They’ll be released next Christmas, for the selling season. THAT’S WRONG! This shit should come out NOW!

Not that many people are interested. But they’re interested NOW! They don’t care about warts in the recordings. They love the immediacy. They want to feel the glow. Listening to this MP3 I feel the glow. I feel the attachment to last week’s shows. I feel like I BELONG!
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Ok, well fuck me. Down there somewhere I made a remark to the effect that the Clapton / Winwood show would be a "nice evening in the old days but I can’t deal with all the hype, blah, blah, blah", so today a friend calls (I didn’t even know the shows started tonight) and says he has an extra ticket for the Garden show and would I like to go. I say no, my kid’s in town from college and we’re going to catch There will be Blood, and then I start to think – Blind faith was to be THE supergroup – maybe this is worth checking out if there’s reasonably priced tickets outside the Garden. Well, no chaep tickets, but great seats at a "fair" price and the show was so fucking monumental I’m still shakin’.

The problem with the Cream show was Clapton, without a strong Baker and Bruce had to carry too much of the load and let’s face it, their material was generally only fair. It was well worth it since I never (along with most others) never got the chance to see them in the old days. But still, for history and to show my son, definitely worth it. But THIS – Clapton SOARED, SHREDDED, WAILED, (enough?). The MATERIAL, Winwood’s VOICE, Clapton’s ability to be free to concentrate on nuanced solos with the help of the cushion of dual keyboards or Winwood’s underrated guitar playing on and on and on. Clapton needs no Viagra – he came over and over again, as good, in some ways maybe even better, than ever. He’s STILL GOD.

I can’t remember everything (my Ambien’s starting to kick in) but a Hendrix tribute, of sorts, with THE GREATEST Little Wing and Voodoo Chile (which Winwood played organ on the original Electric Ladyland version, remember? (with Jack Casady on bass!). Clapton pulled a note out of his solo that sounded like a 500 lb catfish from the bottom of the Mississippi River – balls, balls, balls – these guys grinned through the whole thing – opened with an amazing Had to Cry Today – only minor disappointment was no Gimme Some Lovin’ encore. No throwaway mid-period solo album stuff – all great selections and they only scratched the surface of they’re vast potential repertoire – they hinted at extending the project – let’s hope so. The Boomers in the audience primal screamed like they haven’t in 20 years. Goodnight!

Rob Wolfson

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They are now doing voodoo child after littlewing…following a set of both artistes very best

Steve of course played on the original recording by jimi

Eric has not rocked this hard in years….both are having a great time and in fine voice

I would venture to say this is eric at his best since wheels of fire

More later

P.s. Rap says hi

Danny Z

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Imagine going to see the Cream reunion and being disappointed because although Jack Bruce sang his heart out and Ginger Baker played a terrific drum solo, Eric Clapton, for some reason decided to just phone in his lead parts, none of which even echoed any of his original licks or phrasings.

Now imagine going to see Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton in the exact same arena (MSG) and hearing this set list played NOTE for NOTE, except for the parts where a real band opened up and just jammed together! Oh, and the band? How about Chris Stainton on keys, Willie Weeks on bass, and Ian Thomas on drums!!!

01. Had To Cry Today
02. Low Down
03. Forever Man
04. Them Changes
05. Sleeping In The Ground
06. Presence Of The Lord
07. Glad / Well Alright
08. Double Trouble
09. Pearly Queen
10. Tell The Truth
11. No Face
12. After Midnight
13. Split Decision
14. Ramblin On My Mind (EC solo acoustic)
15. Georgia On My Mind (SW solo hammond)
16. Little Wing
17. Voodoo Child
18. Can’t Find My Way Home
19. Dear Mr Fantasy
Encore: 20. Crossroads

I swear, if I new it was going to be this good, I would have broken down and dropped mescaline! With out a doubt, it was the best Eric Clapton I’ve seen in years. I can’t remember when he’s rocked this hard. There was a moment in "Voodoo Child" where I swear it seemed like a lightning bolt shot through him thrown by Jimi himself, and the fire that came out of that guitar was clearly coming from another planet! That solo alone made everyone’s insides just explode!

But enough about Clapton for a second. What about Winwood?!!!!! That voice!! And I’d forgotten about HIS guitar skills! Oh my God! And the two guitars together? Oh my God, squared!!!!

The best part was that the musicians were CELEBRATING these songs and riffs and not playing them as just a gig for money based on nostalgia. And, if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know if it was 2008 or 1969! Except for the fact that all those guys on stage were actually even better because of years of musical growth.

I have seen thousands of shows and concerts (lucky guy), but this one will go down in history as one of the all time best shows I ever saw and got to be a part of.

Paul Rappaport

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Bob,
Went to the Winwood-Clapton Jam last night at the Garden.

I have been a Clapton fan since the age of 12 when I first heard "white room" by cream. By the time I delved deeper into Cream and heard Eric’s version of "Crossroads" I knew I had to save up and buy a Les paul. I am proud to say that I still steal Clapton’s licks to this day. He’s a genius, and when it comes to straight feeling and transition there’s none better in the field today. He’smy definition of a living legend. He has touched every piece of the puzzle since the insception of modern rock.

At first when I learned that the tickets I got from my brother for christmas were "behind the stage" I was a little disapointed. They were in fact the best seats I have ever had at any venue ever.
I sat right above the drum kit with no obstructions at all. I saw the crowd as they saw the crowd. I could feel them playing TOGETHER. It was the closest I have ever come to being on the stage and imagining myself playing with Legends.

I run a live music venue in NYC, and I am also a musician myself. I have been to many shows. I have played many shows. I have never seen that kind of free flowing magic. You could feel them re-unite.
I made a point to read Clapton’s new book before I went. I mean, I knew everything in it already, but felt it only appropriate to hear it from his viewpoint. It only added to the magic of the show. You could feel their history in every note.

Bob, you were 100% right about the way Clapton plays when he’s allowed to sit backseat to Steve’s voice and a screamming Hammond. Indescribable.

Oh, and by the way, Steve may be know for his fingers tickling the keys until they fall off, but he is absolutley no slouch on the 6 string either. It looked like a solo competition up there. It was remniscent of an allman brothers concert at times (except with Fender Strats). Truly amazing how Steve Winwood held his own toe to toe with Eric Clapton.

Anyway, Great show, Great Night, Great Energy, Great memory!

Best,

Andrew Gerardi

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Clapton – winwood was a great show.
100 percent value even at mishegenah prices.
I’m sure u heard.

Steven E. Fenster

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Clapton + winwood = religion.

David Brinker

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The show was spectacular….just like the good ol’ days…..great playin, great singin, great songs!
One of the many highlights….15 minute version of "voodoo chile"….

Brad Rosenberger

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Harvey Leeds:

At msg winwood clapton right now doing can’t find my way home. Cream shows were just ok this is great. Clapton is smiling. In the last decade he has put me to sleep in concert. U would love this.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Funny thing about this Internet, you end up hearing from everybody you’ve ever known.  Long after the people in your life have faded from three dimensions into two, you see their names in your inbox.  Like they ambled down the hall and stopped in your dorm room to ask you a question.  I used to think only the records followed me through this life.  But I’ve learned the people you listened to them with are still there, waiting to come back to life, to tell you the way it was.  Stunningly, they haven’t changed, and neither have you.  And the records, they’re literally the same.

In the last five days I’ve heard from two friends from college.  One of whom was hanging in the ether for fifteen years, our relationship having lapsed for that long.  He read my piece about the Stevie Winwood track somewhere online, he wanted to give me his take on the show at Madison Square Garden.  He’d traveled down from Boston to see it.  You see, that’s what we have in common, the music.  That’s what I have in common with you.

We broke the shrinkwrap and dropped the needle on fragile black records.  But what came out of the speakers was full-bodied.  The sound blew into the room and enveloped us.  We had to go to the show to get closer to these people.  They didn’t wear head-set mics, they didn’t dance, they were positively human.  They displayed anxiety, self-consciousness and bravura.  We felt if only we could know them, our lives would work.  Admit it, that’s why you got into this business.  Sure, there was the supposed glamour and financial reward, but you wanted to get closer to the artists, you wanted to know them, you wanted to be there when the spark caught fire.

Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t square with the fantasy.  Most artists are poorly adjusted.  It’s this square peg in a round hole identity that causes them to lay down their truth.  About as close as we can get is the tunes themselves, we always go back to the tunes.

I won’t go hear your unsigned band.  I don’t even want to go if you’ve got a deal and/or traction if I’ve never heard of you.  Because without knowing the music, I can’t get it.  All I hear is a cacophony of sound.  And I debate whether I can slip out the side door, or if there’s no escape, how I’m going to tell you what you’ve invested in doesn’t float my boat.  Which is why I stay home, it’s just too difficult.

But every once in a while, you’re astounded by the opening act.  By the act no one hyped you on, that you didn’t come to see.  That’s what happened when Jackson Browne opened for Laura Nyro at the Fillmore East.  The audience didn’t whisper, there was no din, everybody paid attention to the slight fellow on stage playing the acoustic guitar.  Telling stories that you could catch the first time through.

Over a year later, Jackson’s first album was released.  The jaunty "Doctor My Eyes" eventually got airplay.  "Jamaica Say You Will", "Under The Falling Sky", "Rock Me On The Water" and "My Opening Farewell" got major covers.  But the track that stuck with me was Jackson’s alone.  Listening to "Something Fine" open side two was like coming back from the bathroom and finding your date sitting on your bed, slowly telling you her life story.  Wistfully.  About her little victories and larger slights.

There’s an intimacy in records that’s absent from movies.  A record can get up close to you like no other entertainment medium.  That’s it’s power…  If you choose to exercise it.

It’s hard not to bang the listener over the head.  Urge the audience to pay attention.  But if somehow you can get someone to buy your record and play it alone, you’ve got a chance to reach them.  Via your sheer honesty.

I was planning on a late night hike in the mountains.  I still might make it.  But, before I got up to do my back exercises, I decided to rip Jackson Browne’s new album, "Solo Acoustic Vol. 2", so I could listen to it on my iPod.  Waiting for the CD to transfer, I started entering the titles, the album being too new for them to come down automatically, and when I got to "Something Fine", I decided to play it.

And then I couldn’t move.

This guy sent me these speakers.  I’d never spend a grand on a computer system, but I must admit if a CD is mastered properly, if the engineer hasn’t compressed the shit out of it, the sound that emanates is shocking.  It’s just like the seventies.  When the warmth drew you into the acoustic music.  (http://www.auxout.com)

The future hides and the past just slides
England lies between
Floating in a silver mist so cold and so clean
California’s shaking like an angry child will
Who has asked for love and is unanswered still

If only we could predict the future.  Our hopes, are they justified?  Or is disaster going to strike.  Meanwhile, the past fades away.  We often become paralyzed, unable to go back or forth.  And the older you get, the harder it is to risk.  But the day you stop taking chances is the day you die.

I’ve been to England.  But my real home is on the east coast, in Connecticut.  My mother still lives there.  I go to the Websites of Bromley and Mad River Glen every day, even during the summer.  The east coast is asking for attention, but I’m sticking with my new love, California.  I didn’t come here to reinvent myself, but I like the freedom, I escaped my past.

Until the Net hit.

And you know that I’m looking back carefully
‘Cause I know that there’s still something there for me

I looked up every old girlfriend back in ’95, when I first got Web access.  But I never e-mailed them.  But one e-mailed me.  She told me her husband wouldn’t like it.  I’d waited for years for her to contact me, now it was too late.  But this proved she was out there, she was still thinking of me.

They’re all still out there.  Except for those we’ve lost along the way.  And now even Jackson Browne has got lines in his face.  The years pass by, but our memories never fade away.  How do we make peace with them?

I don’t know.

Would I fall back into conversation with these old buddies?  Or after the pleasantries, the recitation of decades of history, would we have nothing to say.

But they’re right next to me on the Net.  And today people pick up and fly cross-country on a whim.

The dreams are rolling down across the places in my mind
And I’ve just had a taste of something fine

I didn’t smoke a doobie.  I gave up the herb decades ago.  Maybe that’s why my memories are so clear.  And when I fire up these records, my mind goes back to who I used to be.