Introduction
Since the beginning of 2019, I have been practicing as part of a led zeppelin tribute band.
The project was set up by a drummer on the 3rd year of the degree course called Taylor Waddell who had emailed John to ask for recommendations for a piano player. John recommended me and I was added to a group chat with which we arranged a meeting.
Prior to joining this band, I only knew a couple of Led Zeppelin songs and therefore wouldn’t have described myself as a real led zeppelin fan. I was also slightly reserved in joining a rock focused band as I wanted to focus more on the jazz route and hadn’t had great experiences with playing in rock bands on the keyboard in the past. However I felt that the Led Zeppelin group would allow me to develop as a performing musician as well as my skills of communicating and playing in a band and therefore I decided to go for it.
We initially met up to discuss the band in December 2018, the initial lineup consisted of Sarah on vocals, Steve and Fraser on guitar, Lex on bass, myself on keys and Taylor on drums. This has now changed to Darren on vocals and Jordan on the bass for the final performance. Our first meeting allowed us to discuss practice times and how best to run rehearsal sessions. We decided to do weekly rehearsal sessions on a Wednesday evening. One of my stipulations for being able to play in the band was that I needed a lift to get to rehearsals with all of my gear. Luckily, Steve and Taylor were able to help me out and after that was confirmed , I was fully on with the band.
We decided to start the band in the new year and began practicing in mid January, on this page is an insight to my role in the band as well as the process and preparation for the gig on the 2nd May.
Setlist
My parts for each song
- Introduction
Although some of Led zeppelin’s biggest songs include keys parts, most of their material is very guitar heavy and therefore I had to work out how to adapt to this challenge. Luckily, the keyboard that I use to perform on and practice with has a range of instrument sounds as well as a great organ sound which meant that I could be more flexible on some songs. For example, I was tasked with playing the flute part on Stairway To Heaven, as well as string parts on Kashmir and Friends and the organ parts on Since I’ve Been Loving You. I also doubled up a lot of riffs on the keyboard in order to give the songs a fuller sound.
Good Times Bad Times
The Lemon Song
Dazed And Confused
Since I’ve Been Loving You
Friends
Celebration Day
Bring It On Home And Black Dog
Whole Lotta Love
What Is And Would Should Never Be
Overall, what is an what should never be was probably my favourite song out of the set list that we did. I loved how it had a very Kinks feel in the verse before swapping to a heavier solo which I thought was a really cool contrast overall.
Here is a practice video that we did together.
I would recommend starting this video at 00.50, unless you are wanting to see some very witty banter.
Stairway To Heaven
Here is a clip of us rehearsing stairway to heaven all of the ay through. The video features myself playing the flute part on keys at the start as well as the organ later on. I changed from Organ to strings for the final performance as the strings gave the whole piece are more floaty feel which I think benefited the song overall as the organ sound was probably too moody.
Rock And Roll
Moby Dick
Kashmir
My part in Kashmir was to play the strings lines. Luckily Taylor had the sheet music for this , meaning that I could easily dissect which lines I needed to play. Overall Kashmir was one of the busier songs for me as I was constantly playing and had my own parts to utilise instead of doubling up with the guitars which was quite rewarding. Here is the sheet music for Kashmir.
Immigrant Song
Rehearsals
Here are the videos of our rehearsals in March taken by Mr Taylor Waddell
Playing Standing Up
Playing standing up is something that I had never really experimented with before doing this project. This is mainly down to the styles of music that I have played in the past which have mostly consisted of classical and jazz and therefore are better approached when sitting down. However for Zed Leppelin, as the rest of the band except for Taylor were standing up, I felt that it would look better if I was also stood up for the gig. I could therefore be part of a front line and interact more with other band members on stage.
Although transferring from playing sat down to playing stood up was surprisingly simple, it still changed my approach to the keyboard and therefore it took me a couple of practice sessions to fully get the technique down. Overall, this approach didn’t add too many negatives and allowed me to develop my stage aesthetic.
Promotion
Here is the poster that was made for our gig on the 2nd Ma at the Underground.
Taylor set up an instagram page and regularly uploaded content from our rehearsals as well as other promotion material.
Here is the event page on Facebook. Taylor had also set up an eventbrite page where you could get tickets and make a donation.
On the 5th April me and Taylor went onto the local radio station Bradford Community Broadcast (BCB) to talk about the upcoming show as well as the band and the rehearsal process. It was around five minutes long and it was a great experience to be on the radio talking about a band that I was in. I received a lot of messages of support from people who had heard the interview that had said that it went really well and overall I think this allowed us to promote the event to beyond our combined friendship groups.
Performance – Thursday 2nd May
Unfortunately Taylor forgot to record the performance on the 2nd May, which was quite disappointing. However, there were some great photos taken of the evening as well as some videos.
Videos
First set –
Here is part of good times bad times that goes into the Lemon song
This is a video of Friends and Celebration day
Second Set –
Photos
Here is the link to all of the photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/p99vumvf8m7l8yu/AABOr-RPSDo8jjlp1LGI5yPxa/Bradford%20Underground%203-5-2019?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1
However here are some of the notable pictures that I have chosen from the evening.
Final Performance Reflection and Evaluation
Overall, our final performance went really well. We played a very strong set to an enthusiastic crowd spanning the length of over two hours. Playing live with a rock band was a completely new experience to me and I really enjoyed myself. It was a shame that we hadn’t recorded the full set, however I feel that the video clips show a great insight into our final performance. The majority of the songs went as planned and I felt that we brought a great energy to the stage. My decision to play standing up paid off as I was able to attempt to utilise the rock and roll look and strengthened the front line consisting of me , Fraser, Darren and Steve. The only song that I felt that we could have practiced slightly more was Friends, however as I only had a minor part on this, I think it went okay. It will be sad not to rehearse as regularly with these guys anymore and I will really miss the band. We had some really great feedback from members of the crowd and have potentially been invited to perform at a tribute festival. Overall, this band gave me a great insight into the required standard of a professional tribute band as well as the necessary preparation. The process has also taught me so many great things about my role in a band and the different keyboard sounds that I can experiment with. It was also crazy to learn how many different instruments Led Zeppelin use in their band from flutes to strings. I am sure Led Zeppelin will have some sort of influence on my compositions in the future.