Some guys have dreams about Playmates in sexy French lingerie. I dream about Angus Young in an Aussie schoolboy outfit.
Yes, it's true, I woke up one morning a few weeks ago remembering a dream I'd had about AC/DC. It wasn't even a cool fantasy dream -- say, downing Foster's cans with the lads backstage or jamming onstage with Angus. It was simply a vision of getting a press release at work announcing the band's first U.S. tour in eight years. Boy, was I excited.
Led Zeppelin fans have been praying for just such a dream-come-true since the band played its much-ballyhooed reunion show in London on Dec. 10. As with AC/DC, though, the Zep has left us hanging. Robert Plant is out on tour with Alison Krauss through the summer, and no promise has been made about anything happening after that.
All of this heightened anticipation may help explain the growing popularity of two local tribute bands, Zed-Leppelin and TNT. You see their names more and more in club listings. And as I saw last weekend when I attended gigs by them, they're drawing pretty sizable -- and oftentimes easily excitable -- crowds.
"I've had at least a dozen 55-year-old men come up to me in tears saying, 'I saw Zeppelin back in 1977, and this is the closest I've been to reliving it,'" Zed guitarist John Rohling told me after the show.
The only tears I got from Zed-Leppelin last Saturday at POV's in Andover came with my first glimpse of singer Andy Lijewski in his tight, open-chested, hippie-dippie Plant shirt. But I was genuinely satisfied getting the Led out with the quartet, whose members all played in bands in their 20s and came back to it with Z-L in their late 30s and 40s.
I got there in time for their second of two sets, when they really get to the down-and-dirty stuff, including "Dazed and Confused," "Heartbreaker," "Since I've Been Loving You" and "The Ocean." Lijewski -- who formerly sang in the metal bands Paragon and Raggedy Andy -- fits Plant's vocal range better than his wardrobe, and Rohling was equally impressive as Jimmy Page. He plays the same style of sunburst and double-neck Les Paul guitars that Page used, and he even brings out the bow for "Dazed."
Of course, tribute bands have a fine line to walk between meticulous and just plain nerdy. Z-L crossed the line a few times, such as when Lijewski talked like Plant between songs, or any time Rohling did a knee kick like Page.
