What's the opposite of a Swan?

 If you have a Swan Song, meaning your last gig ever, your final gasp, that last wave to the adoring crowd, then what is the opposite? For your first shout to the world, your debut performance in front of real public:  A Goose Song? Hawk song? Should be waterfowl, I guess, so perhaps Loon Song? 

Whichever, Black Rover had its Loon Song last Saturday night. 

After nine months of work, practice, study, personal adversity, and sheer determination we had our baby in the Union Hall in Newfane, Vermont. And boy was it fun. 

Black Rover on stage in Newfane


It should be mentioned that Newfane, about 12 miles north of Brattleboro, is perhaps the prettiest and most iconic New England village in all of New England. The Union Hall was built in 1832, serving as a grange and community gathering center. 


Union Hall in 1922, long before Led Zeppelin. 



We pulled in for the sound check about 2pm and found out that we were going to be the featured band, playing second; it was our show. We didn't know that, and had actually prepared our set to be shorter, an opener for the other group, whose name, it should be mentioned, was Dead Guy Fashion. Which I happen to think is a very fine name for a band. Anyway, OK, turns out so many people had contacted the concert organizers with high interest for the Led Zeppelin band that they just decided to let us play second and for as long as we wanted. 

All right then! Cool. At the last minute, we re- re- re-think our setlist, and go back to our original design, which was to start with a relaxed acoustic mini-set of acoustic songs, then scream through our ten-song electric set. So we do our sound check, and oh my goodness, that was when the thing actually started taking off. The sound was exquisite. The Union Hall invested a tidy sum in the off-season last year on a state-of-the-art audio PA system, the whole setup running through a brand-new sound board. They got a nice light board too, and have the tech knowledge to run all this gear. The sound guy knew his equipment, knew the space, knew the music and was a pro from the git go. Got the mics and monitors all set and ran through a couple tunes, and honestly it was the best we had ever sounded. The mix was perfect. Darcy's voice was clear as a bell and perfectly balanced, in the monitors and out in the hall. They'd thought of everything; there were audio baffles hung on the wall and dangling from the ceiling, which mellowed the resonance of the hall perfectly. Sometimes these grange halls are echo nightmares; this one was acoustically one of the nicest spaces I've ever played. 

Now remember, this was my first rock show. After a long career in the tuxedoed straightjacket of classical music, I was finally playing electric bass guitar and singing in my own rock and roll band. I'm in heaven. So the sound check's done, I'm trying in vain not to trip over every electric cable on the stage, and we have a break of a few hours before showtime. Dead Guy Fashion is slotted for their sound check at 4, doors open at 6:30, my plan is to amuse myself in midtown Newfane for a couple hours then rock out. I hang out in the hall, taking a pic or two, then stroll over to the Newfane store where I purchase a delicious sandwich and flirt with the sandwich girl. Told her I was in the band. "Oh wow!"  Felt very rock and roll indeed there in Newfane. 

Dead Guy Fashion was still not completely in full attendance when I returned and snarfed my sandwich in the basement. I like to own venues where I play. I tend to find myself a Spot, turn it into a dressing room and my little quiet place. The basement of Union Hall was my dressing room, and I ate and paced and thought about the music. Upstairs DGF was finally assembled and taking the stage for their sound check. We'd been waiting for Ben, the singer and front man; some of the DGF fans were joking about him putting on his makeup, and he showed up and sure enough he had some very impressive makeup: lovely black stars around his eyes, sort of Kiss marries Joey Ramone. That kind of look. 

They got up and started their stuff, and damn, they sounded GREAT! Absolutely killing it. Gene Simmons up there was a dervish. What a presence! Guitarists were excellent, they were loud,  tight as hell and having fun. Really good. Too good. Worrisomely good. How the hell do we old fucks follow that?  We're the headline act? Hm. Ok then, well, Dead Guy Fashion was damn good. Fashionable hats off to them. This shit is real.  

Before you knew it, it was showtime and people were beginning to show up. Actual public. Human beings who I didn't know at all were stepping out to the Newfane night scene to hear Black Rover. The hall was filling up, beer sales were hopping, and the youngsters of the opening band took the stage. And owned it. They were really good, offering up solid 90s rock, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, high-energy stuff (much of which, as a boomer living abroad in the 90s I don't know at all.) I recognized a lot of the music quickly, though, as the child of Led Zeppelin. Fast, energetic riff rock, difficult rhythms, tight details. The accidental logic of the show's lineup became clear. These youngsters were opening for us seasoned older generation as we perform the music that had so informed the music they'd played. 

And the universe smiled. 

We got introduced. I recalled one evening many years ago in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona hearing the words "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones!" This moment was no less emotional. You walk on, plug in your bass. You'd put on your shimmery silver shirt and some blazingly white new shoes and you looked sharp AF. Colored stage lights blink overhead, bright and theatrical. A spotlight rests on you, warm and inviting.  

You play a few notes on your blue bass with its orange strings. It sounds rich and fat and round and gorgeous and loud. 

Darcy says hello and the crowd, probably numbering about 70 souls, yells hello back. We start with our acoustic set of songs. Going to California went beautifully. I was remembering hearing it really for the first time just a few months ago and thinking we could never pull this off, that I'd never be able to play something so ephemeral and lovely and seemingly seamless. And we pulled it off. The song went beautifully from Newfane to California and back. The monitors were perfect. I could hear Percy's singing as I'd never heard her. The guy doing the sound was incredibly sensitive and had just perfect settings for her voice all night long. For all of us. May he live long and prosper and people the earth with his offspring. 

That's The Way was just the way we wanted it to be. I missed my first pretty F but nailed the second. (One of my favorite notes of the whole evening. On the record it's a slide guitar note, thank you Jimmy, but I stole it and made it mine. The vocals together were the best we have ever done. The baroque coda to the song, some of Led Zeppelin's prettiest instrumental composition, was transparent and perfect. Applause was polite. In this softer, acoustic set there was an element of waiting. Everybody knew we were gonna get loud soon, but by gosh we were gonna play our gorgeous acoustic selections. Y'all can just wait.  

Tangerine could have gone worse. I'm not confident about my vocals on that song at all and was happy it was done. Great tune, it's just my voice is way too Johnny Cash to sing pretty Zep tunes, really, let's face it. 

Thank You was beautiful, and up there on that stage I quietly gave thanks in a very profound spiritual way. I was as artistically fulfilled being onstage with this group than I have ever been in my 40-year career. After all the insanity that has happened to me in the past 15 years or so, to be able to stand on that stage in my shimmery silver shirt and perform Led Zeppelin's Thank You, with friends and bandmates whom I love, with thoughts of dear Gracie the dog to whom the song was dedicated, made me inordinately thankful to be present in that moment of my life. In our arrangement the song ends in silence, our minds wrapped in the lyrics, "When the mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me." Snif.

You pause for a few moments. The crowd is alive, happy, they received each song well and they're ready for more, and the Black Rover set is well under way. 

Then Bob's drumsticks go click click click click and we EXPLODE into Immigrant Song. Fucking BOOM. We are LOUD. The crowd wakes up and starts bouncing around and yelling. Finally, we're all thinking, let's get to rockin'. The Ocean was hard on the Immigrant's heels, swinging and swaying through the 7/8 bars. (As an aside, and this is mostly for the string players amongst us, I had the day before changed my entire fingering pattern for this tune. Which can be scary so close to a Big Show. I'd gone back and forth. Had seen how JBJ plays it but rejected it as too hard. Was encountering problems, though, with my fingering, which were upsetting me and actually distorting a rhythm. Sure enough, I've ended up doing it exactly how Jonesey does it. "A fingering must serve the music, not the other way around!" said an old great teacher of mine once. Anyway, It was on my mind during the show. Sounded ok, though and felt in control.) I love the "doo-wops" in the coda of this tune, and was having a ball bouncing around at the back of the stage, grooving with Bob, looking out at the people dancing, feeling the colored lights shifting around me. It was done before I was ready. Then thank you very much and we change the mood to Ramble On. Big tune for the bass player; the iconic bass line repeats itself over and over throughout the song, similar to what we called a ground bass in classical music, like the last movement of Brahms 4th Symphony. The challenge for me in this tune is to adapt each repetition to match whatever's going on at the moment in the song. The beginning is simple, declamatory. As it gets involved the character of the bass part changes. More sustained lines in the guitar instrumental sections, sharper syncopation when the texture thickens. Very careful musical narration and delicacy in the spot that begins "Mine's a tale that can't be told," where we reduce the arrangement to just vocal, that bass line and Bob's restless, relentless high hat. (That high hat is the other big challenge for me. It goes through every verse, and I can't get behind or the whole enterprise will fall apart. It's kind of a bitch of a groove to keep grooving.)

From the stage, the feedback from the crowd was exhilarating. Fun fact: No one ever dances at string quartet concerts. 

We slam into Good Times Bad Times. I've got a lot of vocals in this one and it's a very difficult lick to play on the bass guitar. Hard work. Went good, Ben screaming out solos, and Dr. Bob going berserk. This is his biggest showpiece in the set, his opportunity to channel Bonzo, which he does most effectively. He does some fills sometimes in this tune that blow your socks off. In my Time of Dying was next, another very difficult piece of music. There's a little rhythmic quirk in there, an added eighth note in the middle of the groove, a thing that Zep does often. It's not as easy as it sounds. We nailed all of them. Vocals were huge, Ben and Percy owning the room with their slides.

We were in the fat red meat of our set at this point. When have I ever in my life had more fun? Hard to say. Shostakovich 5 in Barcelona with Kitajenko conducting was as much fun. Conducting a symphony orchestra playing Beethoven's Fifth was also pretty great. A honeymoon in Paris was nice. But this was fun. Darcy finished IMTOD perfectly, just a wee hint of feedback blending with her voice as the song faded away and died. 

Boom. Dancing Days. One of LZ's most recognizable licks. Bob and I joined at the kick. Again, it is musically very satisfying to play bass in a rock band and mind-meld with a good drummer. You find a place where you're both so focused on the groove that it plays itself. Your body just sinks into it. It is powerful being inside that. Unstoppable. LOUD. Commanding. The earth literally moves. Everything else sits on us. The great vocals, the shredding leads, if you take away the bass and drums it's just so much shouting and plinking; nothing to it - the earth doesn't move. The earth, tonight in Newfane, was indeed moving. Dancing Days is the groove and not a lot else. Form is simple, harmonically it doesn't wander; it's serious rock vocals and a little counterpoint from Ben's slide. But it rocks, hell yeah. 

Journaling this has taken ages and I want to be done with it. So do you, dear reader; if you're still reading this, I beg your indulgence for my self-indulgence, and we're almost done. 

Ten Years Gone was the weakest of the set, no question. One of their very greatest tunes, it's such a hard song to pull off. It's just chock full of Led Zeppelin. The way they assemble songs from bits and pieces stitched together, sometimes it is a major challenge making them a coherent, flowing and natural whole. But hey, we made it through, nobody threw any spoilt fruit, and we went on to finish with a bang with The Rover, one of our eponymous songs. 

Yep. I did a big air guitar move at the top of Rover. Yes, it was fun, fkyeah it was. Had I practiced it in the solitude of my bedroom? Come on! Well, yeah. I wanted a lot more room on the stage for air guitar, quite honestly. I long for the big Latchis stage, and maybe a bluetooth connection with my amp, to be able to roam around and do some gymnastics. I know bass players are supposed to be felt but not seen, camping at the back next to the drummer. But ta hell with that. I'm 65 years old, finally playing some rock and roll, and I'm going to air guitar as much as I fucking please. Someone said after the show that I had more moves than a bucketful of worms. 

The rest of Rover was loud and chaotic and tight and together, we introduced ourselves and ended big. 

Crowd went, from my point of view bathed in colored lights and performance sweat, nuts. Yay. Rock concert nuts. Jumping up and down whistling laughing still dancing hootin' and hollerin' nuts. As I was when I saw The Who in 1975. 

They wouldn't let us leave. We tried saying "Thank you! That's all we got! We played all our songs!" That's just too damn bad, they said, and we offered to play something we already played, and that was met with raucous approval, so we hurled ourselves right into Immigrant Song, loud like nobody's business, sweaty, just in heaven making this music in such great conditions and sounding so good. 

Rock star finish, crowd yelling and dancing, dudes genuflecting at our feet, girls blushing, beer flowing. Frankly if I'd keeled over daid in that moment I'd'a been happy.

So that was our big Loon Song. More coming! We're doing a pre-show show before a showing of "Becoming Led Zeppelin" next week at the historic Latchis Theatre, and planning a set list for a complete show at that astonishing venue in a couple of months. We've been practicing and sounding fine and learning new stuff so Black Rover rocks forward!

Please visit blackrover.rocks. Great web address, right? It'll take you to our Facebook page where you can follow us, please. See you at the Latchis!












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