Sonic Boom ad
Advertisement

Plant, Krauss to play at June's Bonnaroo Festival

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

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.

0 comments:

Led Zeppelin Reunion


Photo courtesy of Simon Keeping

The surviving members of Led Zeppelin regrouped in 2007, with Jason Bonham on drums, to perform a year-end tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Their widely praised concert was witnessed in person by fewer than 20,000 people. It is likely never to be repeated, and there are no announced plans to release the concert for home viewing. However, clicking the image above will bring up multi-cam footage of the entire Led Zeppelin performance as it happened on Dec. 10, 2007, at the O2 arena in London.

Many posts on LedZeppelinNews.com have centered on the possibility of a full-scale Led Zeppelin reunion, noting particularly the inaccuracies reported by the popular press.

Page


Jimmy Page stars with fellow guitarists Jack White and The Edge in this guitar documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), which had widespread theatrical showings beginning in August.

LedZeppelinNews.com provided a review of "It Might Get Loud" at that time.

"It Might Get Loud" will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on Dec. 22 in the United States. Click here to pre-order on DVD or Blu-Ray. Prior to this, "It Might Get Loud" will be available on iTunes for two weeks beginning Dec. 8.

- What else should I know about "It Might Get Loud"?

- What else is Jimmy Page up to?

Plant


Just prior to the Led Zeppelin reunion concert in 2007, Robert Plant released the album Raising Sand with Alison Krauss. Their partnership has been the subject of much critical and commercial success, including victories at the Grammy awards two years in a row.

A follow-up to that album has been in pre-production, but Krauss's current priorities are new recordings and eventual touring with her signature band, Union Station. Progress on the second Plant/Krauss album is anticipated following the completion of the Union Station tour.

More recently, Plant entered the studio with famed U2 producer Daniel Lanois for some recording sessions, the nature of which has not been disclosed.

Following the breakup of Led Zeppelin, Plant went on to a rewarding career as a solo artist. He released six albums of his own between 1982 and 1993, two collaborative albums with Jimmy Page between 1994 and 1998, and two more solo albums since that time. Yet until Raising Sand, his biggest commercial success came in releasing an EP of classic cover material under the name The Honeydrippers.

- What else is Robert Plant up to?

Jones


John Paul Jones is now in one of the hottest and hardest rock bands, Them Crooked Vultures. The frontman, handling lead guitar and vocals, is Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is on drums. As for Jones, he offers not only bass and keyboard but also mandolin, keytar, lap steel and whatever else is needed.

One album was released in November, and another is forthcoming. A tour of North America completed in November, and the band now heads to Europe in December and Australia in January.

- What's the latest on Them Crooked Vultures, the group featuring John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl and Josh Homme?

- What else is John Paul Jones up to?

Jason Bonham


Jason Bonham, son of the late John "Bonzo" Bonham, does not take lightly the responsibility of carrying on his father's legacy. Having made a head start at drumming while he was a child, Jason is now passing on the same lessons to a third generation of Bonham drummers.

John Bonham's death in 1980 left such an impact on the surviving members of Led Zeppelin that they knew immediately they could not continue as they were. Yet Jason Bonham's familiarity with the band made him a shoe-in to join his father's bandmates on the few occasions reunion concerts have taken place.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of Bonham's most successful album release to date, the Platinum-certified disc The Disregard of Timekeeping released by his band, Bonham. To mark the milestone, he recently toured with a new band and played under the banner of "An Evening with Jason Bonham."

In the past, Bonham has also toured and/or recorded with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Foreigner, UFO, Paul Rodgers, Joe Bonamassa, Virginia Wolf, Airrace, Healing Sixes and Motherland. He also acted in the movie Rock Star and appeared on the reality TV show "SuperGroup."

- What's the latest on Jason Bonham?

Who Else