'I just came from this blinding gig ...'

As the story is told, John Bonham once explained his way out of a speeding ticket, enchanting the officer who'd pulled him over with a look under the hood of his brand new souped-up sportscar. In the process, he explained that he had just come off of the natural high of having played a "blinding gig."

Those words came to me last night after I was winding down from my third Houses of the Holy show with Classic Albums Live. I never played a gig in my entire life that was more blinding than Saturday, Dec. 13, at the Paradise Live stage at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla.

Even a gentleman in the front row who'd seen the Thursday show told me last night there was a considerable difference in the band's performance at those two particular shows. For the most part, we did everything right at that first show, and we gelled. But at last night's show, we not only played it right but did so with a fluidity among us. We were graceful and articulate and heavy and emotional and powerful, all the things that make a Led Zeppelin performance, in addition to the precision that defines a Classic Albums Live performance. This was probably an appropriate mix of tight and loose.

This front-row attendee also commented that I seemed looser onstage. That went without saying. I definitely was. Feeling at home in this band helps out. Craig Martin and Nick Hildyard both made me feel welcome and important with their comments about me to the crowd. But what really made me feel like I was doing something over and above myself was the healthy supply of adrenaline running through my body when I was playing. I mean, here's a guy who can't dance at all, and I'm swinging and swaying through "D'yer Mak'er" and the choreographer's nightmare that is "The Crunge." Not that Merce Cunningham would be impressed enough to recruit me or anything, but I'm just letting the music be my master and heeding the master's call.

Of the most important things that stick out in my mind from the encore set, one is my spontaneous physical reaction while playing a number we hadn't performed at either of the preceding shows or even in rehearsal. Its title, "Since I've Been Loving You," was mentioned in a group e-mail a month ago as one to be prepared to play, but that's it. No further word of playing it until it was the next song, with 10 seconds to go before launching into it.

But I was prepared. I selected the organ sound Nick had shown me on Thursday afternoon, labeled "Soul Man." I had tried out a few seconds' worth of licks on the sound at that time and, finding it to my liking, moved on to something different. Now that sound was coming in handy. We're doing "Since I've Been Loving You" live.

(The physical reaction thing is coming up. Honest.)

I sit down to play the tune. It's an organ I'm playing, and whenever I play the organ I'm sitting. I used to play church organ, after all. And this is no different. The song starts out all somber and delicate. It's fitting to be seated. But there's a point in the song, at its climax, where it becomes necessary to, er, adjust. And that's what I did. The Lemon let loose and sprung up from the stool, simultaneously kicking it backward at a monitor. It was as unanticipated as the song suggestion itself.

And totally unlike John Paul Jones! That's one guy I've never seen throw stuff around onstage.

But I have heard him crack some dry humor at shows. Almost every night on his first solo tour, in 1999, he was having comical exchanges with audience members based on "Fe fi fo fum" and other quotes associated with him. So I tried my hand at some humor last night. Crickets! Yeah, I think I'll stick with the music.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We are working up a particular number from Presence. We are looking forward to all three of our remaining gigs at Paradise Live, but we'll have extra reason to play it at the last show, since it really will be the last Zeppelin show ever at that little theater. Classic Albums Live will be moving to another South Florida venue in 2009, but we are sure to go out with an unforgettable gig on Saturday the 20th. Probably another "blinding gig."

Update: I added a YouTube video above of the first minute or so of "Stairway to Heaven" from our finale performance on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Encores take high priority at Classic Albums Live 'Houses' show

Led Zeppelin never played "In the Light" live. But Classic Albums Live did, and we nailed it. That's what we kicked off Friday's post-album encore set with, after band introductions by Craig Martin. So it was right after the audience found out I was making my debut with the group this concert series that I gave my best performance of the night.

The only thing done differently from the album version of "In the Light" was I didn't have the delay effect on my lead for the intro and the reprise halfway through the song. I'll probably use that the next time we do the song, after I try it out. This is all new to me, these fancy effects and stuff.

John Paul Jones was in Asheville, N.C., with a bevy of folks jamming on "I Can't Quit You Baby" and "Going to California." In Hollywood, Fla., we had our own crop of celebrities at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino for a Biker Bash afterparty. Richie Sambora and James Belushi were around. We thought we were going to face the proposition of being asked to jam with them. In a way, I'm very glad it didn't happen.

That's because it kept things on track with our band. All but one of the other encores we played were things we ran through only on the day of the gig. The difference between the first and second shows is the crowd. Thursday audiences are all ages, so with the kids there we tend to play more of the radio staples, the Mothership list. Like on Thursday night, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Whole Lotta Love" were a must.

But the more mature Friday night audience allows us to dig out lesser heard Physical Graffiti and In Through the Out Door cuts, for example. "Fool in the Rain," another one Zeppelin never did. I played the jangly piano of "Hot Dog." The guys ran through "Heartbreaker," and I joined for backing vocals on "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)." Things ended with "How Many More Times," which the band played as a fourpiece to finish things off.

The only encore we repeated from Thursday night was "Moby Dick." Both nights, I watched from the side of the stage mindful of something I recently read, probably on the For Badgeholders Only discussion group: that Robert Plant tended to be attentive to John Bonham's solo at Zeppelin shows because he loved watching his friend reinvent rock 'n' roll drumming on a nightly basis. That might even be an exact quote of what I read. Isn't that a great concept?

We still have a few more surprises in store for the next few shows, which will naturally include the full album of Houses of the Holy. But we have a Presence surprise coming up! I don't even know if Houses of the Holy is legitimately the main attraction anymore, the way these encores are coming along. The four remaining shows are gonna smoke!

Update: This thread on the Classic Albums Live message board is dedicated to the show from Friday, Dec. 12.

Second update: I added a YouTube video above featuring the performance of "In the Light" from our finale performance on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Classic Albums Live conquers 'Houses of the Holy' with Steve 'The Lemon' Sauer on keys

Some last-minute scurrying to figure out a way to get myself to play the keyboard parts of Led Zeppelin's pivotal album Houses of the Holy, and a few other songs we included as encores, paid off. Yesterday was a wonderful day, meeting some very talented and very professional musicians and having the immediate chance to play a proper show with them to an attentive audience.

Now I just have to keep the momentum from that initial experience alive for another week and two nights for the five remaining performances on our schedule. Classic Albums Live tackles the fifth Zeppelin album in its entirety again tonight and tomorrow at 9 p.m. and then again next week with the same schedule (Thursday, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Dec. 19-20 at 9 p.m.) on the stage of Paradise Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla.

The only band member I knew at all before yesterday was Nick Hildyard, who executed lead vocal duties for Classic Albums Live last month when I saw and reported on their handling of Led Zeppelin's 40-year-old debut album, note for note, cut for cut. And I knew him only because after he read my critical analysis of their performance, he contacted me, figuring I have a pretty good ear and must be a musician. When I told him I was indeed a keyboardist, the first thing he did was rejoice at having discovered another local keyboardist.

Then, without hesitation, Nick invited me to try my hand at Houses of the Holy, which I of course jumped at. For one thing, I'd just moved down to South Florida, and all the musicians I knew were still 1,000 miles north of me. An opportunity not only to get onstage again but to play a better gig than I'd eve had before? Sure, it was going to take some work to ready myself, but it was a challenge I would have been foolish to turn down.

Nick and I got together a couple times between early November and yesterday, and he also often checked in on my progress by e-mail while he was off flying around to distant Classic Albums Live shows in Canada and the United States. Busy guy, but accommodating and also pretty relaxed. I told him I was worried about some keyboard sounds not being totally accurate, but he said not to worry. He lent me a midi console with hundreds of instrument sounds on it.

Unfortunately for me, I never was able to practice with that console on my own because it was incompatible with my primitive keyboard equipment at home! In fact, we discarded my keyboard altogether yesterday because of its limitations. We were at a professional gig, so we were going to use only professional equipment. Nick provided me with some good stuff, and I took some time onstage at our afternoon onstage setup sorting out what sounds would be good for what songs and making copious notes to boot. Now I was starting to sound like the John Paul Jones Orchestra.

As I auditioned this plethora of sounds in my headphones, most of the rest of the group rolled in straight from the airport, where they'd just flown in from Toronto, home of a six-night stint playing nothing but AC/DC's Back in Black. They were jet-lagged and complaining of ringing in their ears and admittedly in need of showers, but it was time to get themselves musically ready first. I was told that we were on an accelerated rehearsal schedule because normally we meet each other a day in advance of our first show rather than the day of it. That wasn't possible this time, so we wouldn't be able to run through everything before showtime. I don't think anybody wanted to anyway.

These guys were getting in, and I shied away from interacting with them except just to introduce myself by name and say it was good to be making my Classic Albums Live premiere with him. I honestly expected them to be inaccessible and arrogant, but no: They were as friendly as Barney the Purple Dinosaur and as neighborly as Fred Rogers. Then, when they heard me play, they were as complimentary of me as my mom!

In Classic Albums Live, these performers don't specialize in any one particular group. They're jacks of all trades. The seasoned veterans have each played dozens of different albums by a wide variety of artists. One Houses of the Holy guitarist, Tom Mcdermott, was pretty new to the thing but already had performed albums by the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. But they are as competent and fluent in Led Zeppelin's music as any Zep tribute band member I've ever encountered. This made it as awesome to talk with them as it was to play with them.

Of course, I don't think they were expecting to hear that this unknown 29-year-old keyboardist had interviewed John Paul Jones seven years ago, almost to the day. Our bass player, Johnny B., was tickled to find out from me that he's not the only bass player in the world who likes to stay close to the drums when performing live; Jones says the others in Zeppelin would encourage him to play at the front of the stage but he would find himself drifting back toward Bonzo's kit within a song or two.

In the case of our drummer, Rick Vatour, it's with good reason. He and Johnny B. play off of each other unbelievably well. They possess the same chemistry that Jones and John Bonham did, and that Jones evidently has rediscovered with Jason Bonham for quite some time. Johnny and Rick form a tight rhythm section, one that really can't be described as tight but loose like Led Zeppelin's was. This is only by virtue of the fact that Classic Albums Live reproduces with precision the run-through of every song as it was laid down in the winning take in the studio. They aren't improvising; they're faithfully reciting the improvisation that was rendered on tape and played back on home stereo systems and on radio stations billions of times through the ages.

At the show last night, I sat onstage, unoccupied at two keyboards that were useless to me for seven minutes or so, while the band around me ran through an encore version of "Dazed and Confused" when it occurred to me, during Dom Polito's violin bow section with vocal responses, that the real action was happening on the bass and drums. These two guys were essentially playing a duet with each other, not taking their eyes off of each other. They had it all meticulously written out for them in their minds and memories, and the playbook was 40 years old. It was incredible to see, and I look forward to seeing that again soon.

The show wasn't without its gaffes, the majority of which can be blamed on the rookie on the keys. They were things I recognized right away and did what I could to correct them or file them away for future reference. A few notes into my "No Quarter" introduction, I recognized that I didn't have the phase filter on my Rhodes piano sound, but fixing that was just a quick switch away. I inserted one clavinet phrase too late at the ending of "Over the Hills and Far Away," but I won't make the same mistake tonight.

And I committed a song structure error during "Kashmir" that also used to trip up John Paul Jones during live performances to the point that he would have to refer to his own handwritten notes about the song structure at his keyboard to help him from getting off track. Perhaps that's good advice for me too!

I went over some of these blunders with my bandmates after the show, but they were more interested in congratulating me on doing certain things that I did that most keyboardists they've worked with don't. For one, Johnny B. said I was correct in playing low notes on the Rhodes piano sound during the verses of "Stairway to Heaven." He said most keyboardists wrongly believe that's a bass on the record, and he said he was surprised to have finally found a keyboardist who agrees with him that there's no bass in the song until the third verse after the 12-string and Rhodes enter.

Meanwhile, the only constructive criticism I received from Classic Albums Live founder Craig Martin wasn't musical at all. It was on my wardrobe! I shouldn't have exposed the Foo Fighters T-shirt I was wearing underneath my button-down, and socks and shoes should have replaced my flip flops. (Hey, the guy's Canadian, not Floridian, so I'll give him a break!) But Craig did tell me that I had "big eyes and big ears." By this, he meant I was capable of following the other musicians' lead, being ready to interpret musical cues whether by listening or keeping my head up, and blending in accordingly. Craig said, "That's what it's all about." Yes, it is.

And that's something I've been trying to convey to all my bandmates throughout my years of playing. It's the ability that made Led Zeppelin a band of such great performers, and it's what kept them together all the years they were. It's probably what Jimmy Page is experiencing with the Jones-Bonham rhythm section of the 21st century and is drawing that trio back to wanting to work together again, whether or not they're joined by Robert Plant. It's a good thing that magic was there for Tom Mcdermott and me as we worked with the polished band of Nick Hildyard, Dom Polito, Johnny B. and Rick Vatour for the first time. Since our rehearsal time was so limited, it was excellent to go out onstage at showtime and be able to present our magic act to "The Ocean" that had gathered to witness it.

Update: This thread on the Classic Albums Live message board is dedicated to the show from Thursday, Dec. 11.

Second update: I added a YouTube video above of about a minute from our performance of "The Rain Song" on our final night, Saturday, Dec. 20.

Note-for-note recitation: Classic Albums Live reprises Zeppelin's debut LP

Last night, I caught an 8 p.m. show by Classic Albums Live. The concept is simple: Musicians replicate a classic album, song for song, word for word, note for note, sound for sound. These musicians are experts in their craft and pay exquisite attention to detail.

They were playing Led Zeppelin's first album, from "Good Times Bad Times" on through "How Many More Times." I saw the fourth of six performances in two weeks during a homestand at Paradise Live in Hollywood, Fla. It was definitely worth $20 to witness these professionals pay tribute to Led Zeppelin by repeating the nine songs as they appeared in the final mix on the album recorded 40 years ago last month.

First of all, it takes more than four people to do what Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham accomplished in the studio. For most songs, there were five people onstage, with one guitarist handling the acoustic parts and the other handling the electric lines. A few times, a keyboardist added himself to the mix. Other times, the group dwindled down to a fourpiece. For one song, guitarist Rob Phillips shuffled between the electric strapped to him and the acoustic on a stand. The singer stayed away from playing instruments except for his harmonica solo on "You Shook Me" and also playing the part of guest tabla player Viram Jasnai on the acoustic instrumental "Black Mountain Side." The rhythm section of bass and drums kept the tempo consistent and the groove tight all throughout the night.

When I say these guys play everything, I'm not referring just to the notes you'd read off of sheet music. That would be too simple. Of course you'll hear the bass drum's insistent shuffle behind the second half of the guitar solo on "I Can't Quit You Baby." There's a lot more to them than that. They're also replicating everything as far as the subtleties that come from overanalyzing a song. So when Plant laughs off-mic in the second verse of "You Shook Me," you can be sure to see vocalist Nick Hildyard put on a smile and do that too.

And the crowning moment of the night came during "I Can't Quit You Baby" when I knew coming up was the one instance toward the end of his guitar solo that Jimmy Page strikes a power chord a split second too early. It's something I've seen Jimmy discuss in an interview, claiming it was intentional and not a mistake. I wondered if even this intricacy woud come out when reproduced onstage by fiery axeman Dom Polito. It was. He did it. And I marvelled.

But immediately after he played the chord that sounds too early, the bass player mistakenly followed him! That wasn't in the sheet music!

One of my absolute favorite things about Led Zeppelin, from listening to their official and unofficial live recordings and comparing them to the studio renditions of their songs, is the onstage improvisation. The group never performed a song the same way twice. So it was odd to be attending a performance of live musicians playing what to my ears were meticulous run-throughs of those studio renditions. The way the group happened to perform the songs in the studio on that one particular take that made it to vinyl is the way these performers rehearse it and play it night after night without any variation.

I think I would find that infuriating. If I were a guitarist who was restricted to churning out identical nine-minute readings of "Dazed and Confused" every night and, in the process, refrain from the improvements Page added to the song over the course of six years of playing it live, night after night, I would only be frustrated. My creativity would be stunted, and I wouldn't dig that. How long would I last?

But just as I was thinking that during "Dazed and Confused," the band was reprising the main theme of the song having played such a tight rendition of the segue from the violin bow solo. And the reason this band was so tight was because Led Zeppelin was tight on that part of the album. It probably is the tightest Led Zeppelin ever played that, and it made it onto the album and finds itself being repeated meticulously 40 years later by some afficianados. It must be an honor for them to be duplicating such a great and tight version of that song.

And of every song.

So maybe it's not so bad after all!