U.S. tour dates for Plant, Krauss extend through July

Tickets to a newly announced batch of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss shows throughout the United States are soon going on sale.

The performers are scheduled to appear at six shows in the South this April, before returning to the States in June fresh off a European tour including dates in England.

The newly announced shows are to take place this June and continue through July 1.

Newly announced tour dates consist of 18 shows in 17 cities mostly throughout the Mid-Atlantic and California.

Among previously announced dates are a pair of nights in Louisville, Ky., to open the tour. Tickets to both shows have sold out. Also previously announced is a performance at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee, to take place June 15.

Their complete U.S. concert itinerary as now announced is as follows:

• Saturday, April 19 – Louisville, Ky. – The Palace Theatre
• Sunday, April 20 – Louisville, Ky. - The Palace Theatre
• Tuesday, April 22 – Knoxville, Tenn. – Knoxville Civic Coliseum
• Wednesday, April 23 – Chattanooga, Tenn. – Memorial Auditorium
• Friday, April 25 – New Orleans, La. – Jazz & Heritage Festival
• Saturday, April 26 – Birmingham, Ala. – BJCC Arena
• Monday, June 2 – Roanoke, Va. – Roanoke Civic Center
• Wednesday, June 4 – Uncasville, Conn. – Mohegan Sun
• Thursday, June 5 – Boston, Mass. – Bank Of America Pavilion
• Saturday, June 7 – Canandaigua, N.Y. – CMAC
• Sunday, June 8 – Atlantic City, N.J. – Borgata
• Tuesday, June 10 – New York, N.Y. – Madison Square Garden Theatre
• Friday, June 13 – Columbia, Md. – Merriweather Pavilion
• Saturday, June 14 – Asheville, N.C. – Asheville Civic Center
• Sunday, June 15 – Manchester, Tenn. – Bonnaroo
• Tuesday, June 17 – Detroit, Mich. – Fox Theatre
• Thursday, June 19 – St. Louis, Mo. – Fox Theatre
• Saturday, June 21 – Denver, Colo. – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
• Monday, June 23 - Los Angeles, Calif. - Greek Theatre
• Tuesday, June 24 - Los Angeles, Calif. - Greek Theatre
• Wednesday, June 25 – Santa Barbara, Calif. – Santa Barbara Bowl
• Friday, June 27 – Berkeley, Calif. – Greek Theatre
• Saturday, June 28 – Stateline, Nev. – Harvey's
• Monday, June 30 – San Diego, Calif. – Humphrey's
• Tuesday, July 1 – Phoenix, Ariz. – Dodge Theatre

Rounder Records, their label, expects to announce more tour dates soon. Jimmy Page has said Plant's current touring commitments with Krauss are likely to run until September.

Is anybody who reads this going to Knoxville or Chattanooga? Let me know. I will be there myself!

Zep members and the Grammys

The Los Angeles award ceremony for the recorded music industry hands out its annual trophies tonight, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss stand to gain another statue for "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," in the category Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.

John Paul Jones will be present to conduct an orchestra playing along with the Foo Fighters at the ceremony, which will be broadcast live in the United States on CBS television.

The orchestra is to be made up of winners from a Youtube contest called "My Grammy Moment." One of three finalists will perform a solo, and votes will be online before and during the broadcast to determine which one will play the solo.

Um, can I vote for Jonesy?

They'll be playing the Foos' summer 2007 single "The Pretender." Jones guested on two Foo songs on the band's 2005 album, In Your Honor.

Monday marks the TV premiere of Plant and Krauss appearing on "CMT Crossroads"; check your local listings for time and channel. The entire show is already streaming online.

OK, am I out of it or what? The Plant-Krauss song is the only one in that category I've even heard. Here are the nominees:

• "Steppin' Out," Tony Bennett & Christina Aguilera
• "Beautiful Liar," Beyoncé & Shakira
• "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)," Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
• "The Sweet Escape," Gwen Stefani & Akon
• "Give It To Me," Timbaland Featuring Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake

Know what? I might have heard that last one, but I'm not sure.

Right now, I'm watching the Grammy pre-show on E! Something just crawled across the bottom of the screen saying: "Zeppelin fans have something to cheer about. Guitarist Jimmy Page says he's ready to get back on the road. The Led Zeppelin reunion tour could happen as early as September." Is that really Led Zeppelin news? Stay tuned to LedZeppelinNews.com.

Plant, Krauss to play at June's Bonnaroo Festival

As a lineup of acts performing at this June's Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee is being unveiled, it is confirmed that Robert Plant will perform with his current touring partner, Alison Krauss, in a lineup featuring T-Bone Burnett.

While the past months' rumors of a Led Zeppelin appearance at the festival are being quashed, media sources including the Associated Press and the United Kingdom's Telegraph have mistakenly reported Led Zeppelin was reuniting for Bonnaroo. The Chicago Sun-Times and Telegraph ran corrections after their mistaken pronouncements of a Led Zeppelin set at the festival.

Plant and Krauss, who are listed fifth on the bill currently featured on the front page of Bonnaroo's Web site, are scheduled to perform on June 15, the last day of the four-day festival set to take place in Manchester, Tenn.

Headlining acts topping the bill are rock groups Pearl Jam and Metallica and solo performers Jack Johnson and Kanye West. The all-female tribute act Lez Zeppelin is also scheduled to perform at the annual festival, a fact that seems to be the source of some media outlets' confusion.

Last year's lineup included a one-off onstage collaboration that teamed John Paul Jones with Ben Harper and ?uestlove to play a set of Led Zeppelin numbers. Jones also sat in with various bluegrass acts, including the female string band Uncle Earl, on multiple stages.

One member of Uncle Earl, Abigail Washburn, is slated to appear with her side project, the Sparrow Quartet. This musical project features the highly regarded performer Bela Fleck.

In turn, Fleck is listed among performers taking part in a collaborative act billed as the Bluegrass Allstars. In this act, Fleck is to be joined by such performers as Luke Bulla, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer and Bryan Sutton. Also listed on the bill is "a very special acoustic performance by Larry Campbell, Jackie Greene, Phil Lesh & Teresa Williams."

Theoretically, the presence of such renowned performers, including Plant and Krauss, could be a draw for Jones, who has not been announced as a performer.

Plant and Krauss are scheduled to embark on a transcontinental tour of the United States, opening April 19 with the first of two shows in Louisville, Ky., and continuing with previously announced dates and also an April 25 performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

A leg of their tour is to take place throughout mainland Europe and the United Kingdom, followed by the Bonnaroo Festival and other June and July U.S. shows yet to be announced.

Speculation about Led Zeppelin tour like a pregnancy; birth this September?

There's a great line in an article in this morning's Washington Post, which I'll repeat here. Staff writer Kevin Merida discusses the repercussions of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards dropping out of the race; will Edwards endorse either of the leading Democratic contenders? The author closes by saying:

That truth is known. It just hasn't been revealed.

The same could be said, perhaps accurately, about the primary issue dominating the conversations of Led Zeppelin fans these days.

Will Led Zeppelin play another concert?

We could be asking the question for another eight months or more, so it's like a pregnancy.

If Jimmy Page knows the truth, he didn't reveal it on Monday, when he spoke publicly for the first time since Led Zeppelin's Dec. 10 concert in London.

The occasion on Monday in Tokyo was a press conference to support the release of Led Zeppelin's latest best-of compilation, Mothership.

Many media outlets were emboldened enough by the words spoken to state that Page had indeed "confirmed" a tour will take place. Really, all Page told reporters on that subject was that nothing will happen, probably including conversations about the future, until this September.

By then, Page said, Robert Plant would have probably completed touring with bluegrass star Alison Krauss.

The two singers released an album together in October, one month after Led Zeppelin confirmed it would play one concert in 2007 to pay tribute to Ahmet Ertegün. Plant and Krauss have announced tours that will take them from North America to the United Kingdom and mainland Europe and back, all between April and perhaps as late as July or August.

That means any offers on the table would not be considered until Plant could fully participate in the decision. (Not that the others would dare commit without him!)

Plant has said he has been in a completely different mindset over the length of his post-Led Zeppelin career. His latest project sees him and Krauss covering tunes by Gene Clark and the Everly Brothers while also performing some tunes from each singer's back catalog.



He says Krauss offers a mean fiddle on their interpretation of one of Led Zeppelin's songs. Even though Zep tunes are not off limits when performing with Krauss, fronting the world's heaviest rock band is a very different task for Plant. It's something he had not seriously committed himself to doing since John Bonham was drumming in 1980.

Ritchie Yorke, a longtime journalist and the author of Led Zeppelin's "Definitive Biography," offers some historical insight as quoted in a news article published in Brisbane, Australia's Courier-Mail today.

"They see themselves as a band that brought a lot of change to rock 'n' roll and took it to another level after the Beatles," said Yorke, as quoted in the article. "They didn't want to mess with that, so that’s what held them back from doing this before. ... There's always been big money for them to get back together but they’ve felt it was just too special a thing to be tossed out again just for money."

Yorke continued by listing some of the unconfirmed rumors of deals on the table. He went into such specifics as naming Michael Cohl as a promoter who has offered Led Zeppelin $200 million for a North American tour. Yorke also speculated that his current home country of Australia would be lucky enough to host Led Zeppelin for as many as five concerts.

"They'll do Australia because they're quite fond of Australia but it may not be till later," Yorke said. "Every country in the world wants dates and they'll only do so many, but I reckon they'll do four or five in Australia and Brisbane will get one."

Is there a September birth being prepped in the Led Zeppelin world? I guess we'll have a lot of time to place our bets before all will be revealed.

By then, Edwards should have endorsed a candidate in the U.S. presidential race.

Plant, Krauss to play U.S. dates

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have just announced the dates of their earliest-scheduled concerts to take place this spring.

As of now, four shows in the Southern United States this April will open a brief bout of touring in support of their October 2007 release, Raising Sand.

The first date is April 20, with a performance scheduled at the Palace Theatre in Louisville, Ky. Two shows in Tennessee are to follow: April 22 at the Knoxville Civic Center at April 23 at the Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga. The final U.S. date announced is April 26 at the BJCC Arena in Birmingham, Ala.

Tickets to three of the above shows will be available through Ticketmaster; the exception is the Chattanooga show, for which tickets are available online through http://www.etix.com/.

A previously announced month-long tour of the United Kingdom and mainland Europe is to follow in May.

In a Jan. 18 news release, Rounder Records said other North American concert dates to take place in June and July have yet to be confirmed.

Rare, early Led Zeppelin concert ad moot on band

Frank Reddon, in his latest posting at Enzepplopedia.com, discusses the precedent a newspaper ad for an early Led Zeppelin show sets for promoting the group.

The band's fourth concert after setting foot in North America for the first time took place Dec. 29, 1968, at the Portland Civic Auditorium in Oregon. It is the fourth of five West Coast dates for which the unknown Led Zeppelin opened for the more popular Vanilla Fudge.

Reddon points out that the two groups had just become labelmates, although Led Zeppelin's signing was to the Atlantic Records label itself, rather than the Atco subsidiary like the Vanilla Fudge. The other difference is that Led Zeppelin didn't have an album out yet.

Atlantic had already been creating a buzz with press releases about the group, relying not only on the familiar name Jimmy Page had made for himself in America as the guitarist for the Yardbirds; press releases divided their attention equally to all four members of the band.

However, as Reddon points out, a newspaper ad for the Portland concert makes absolutely no mention of a Led Zeppelin album soon to be released. "Notice ... the advertisement heavily promotes the Vanilla Fudge albums," Reddon writes. "There's not a peep about Led Zeppelin's upcoming album. Thus started Led Zeppelin's practice of letting its music do the talking, right from the beginning. Ads like these provide a wealth of information into the early touring history of Led Zeppelin, at the group's very beginnings."

The newspaper ad, which appeared in an edition of The Oregonian, is regarded as the sole evidence identifying the name of the Vanilla Fudge's opening act in Portland. The ad misspells the band's name and also identifies its familiar guitarist: "Special Guests LED ZEPPILEN (sic) Featuring Jimmy Page." On the other hand, flyers and tickets for the show named only the headlining act.

Coincidentally, Led Zeppelin's Portland show stands distinct from the four other initial North American gigs because it is the only one yet to be commented on by a visitor to Led Zeppelin's official Web site. Reddon's upcoming book, Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin -- Break & Enter, is set to fill the void. Released this coming September on the 40th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's first concert date, the book is to include Reddon's thorough 2000 interview of a person who attended the Portland show.

Uncle Earl tours middle America; Plant, Krauss show to air in February

The all-girl string band whose album received the production treatment from John Paul Jones is back on tour in the United States. With a live appearance tomorrow at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Uncle Earl launches a brief tour of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest in support of the album Waterloo, Tennessee.

Following a slightly more comprehensive U.S. tour that ended last October, the group crossed the Atlantic Ocean in November to play its first-ever concerts in England. The four members -- Abigail Washburn, Kristin Andreassen, KC Groves and Rayna Gellert -- also attended Led Zeppelin's Dec. 10 concert in London as guests of Jones.

Uncle Earl's tour continues this week with Tuesday night in Annapolis, Md.; in Harrisburg, Pa., on Thursday; and in Goshen, Ind., on Saturday. Next week starts off with a three-night concert stand in Green Bay, Wis., on Jan. 20-22, before Uncle Earl heads to Chicago for a Jan. 23 show; Danville, Ind., for a Jan. 24 performance; and finally Hamilton, Ohio, for the closing gig on Jan. 25.

In other Led Zeppelin-related news, last year's only live appearance by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss is now scheduled to be televised on Feb. 11. A press release issued today is the first to identify the premiere broadcast of the singing duo's concert, which took place Oct. 18 in front of a studio audience outside Nashville, Tenn.

Airing on the cable network Country Music Television, episodes of the program "CMT Crossroads" match popular country artists with performers representing another musical genre. Past episodes paired Ray Charles with Travis Tritt, John Fogerty with Keith Urban, Kid Rock with Hank Williams Jr., and Elvis Costello with Lucinda Williams.

It is expected that Plant and Krauss will soon announce the dates of a U.S. tour in support of last October's release, Raising Sand. December saw them announcing an 11-show tour of the United Kingdom and mainland Europe, scheduled to take place over the course of 15 days this May.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss share the same label, Rounder Records, as Uncle Earl.