Michael White and The White Present Led Zeppelin II

Michael White keeping the spirit of Led Zeppelin alive.

Jan 13 2012 – In the second of a developing series, Michael White and The White performed Led Zeppelin II at The Sound Academy located in Toronto’s waterfront on Friday night. The series began back in October when they performed Led Zeppelin 1 (reviewed here).We were looking forward to tonight’s show and our optimism was well founded. The band was very tight and rocked each and every song. At 9:45 p.m. the show started and they managed to catch the audience by surprise by leading off the show not with the familiar opening E-chord riff of Whole Lotta Love but instead chose a song that was not on Led Zeppelin II at all. Then again, there’s nothing wrong with leading off a Zep show with Rock and Roll! Then they kept the audience guessing by performing the songs out of order. Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid got the crowd rocking, (or at least I assume they were, since we were at our usual station at the front of the stage with the crowd behind us). Those that I could see were certainly rocking out! I should also point out that when I meandered my way to get beers it was a very good sized crowd, just as it as was back in October. There will always be a hunger for Led Zeppelin‘s music in this city. [ED. You mean in ANY city]

Brian Wall throwing down Moby Dick

Led Zeppelin II is vastly different from the first album. While still very much blues based, it broke new ground and established Zeppelin as rock superstars. It also started to define the sound for which Zeppelin would become known. The raw unpolished sound of the first album was replaced by a highly refined, yet still gritty sound which was produced by Jimmy Page. Rather the usual Verse Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Chorus structure of most songs of the day, Page‘s songwriting was riff based and didn’t follow a predefined structure. He influenced virtually every rock guitarist since.

Led Zeppelin II at the Sound Academy

This album was well-suited for this incarnation of The White. Michael White has been performing Led Zeppelin material longer than I can remember and by necessity, his musicians have changed from time to time. Tonight’s performance was the strongest we have seen from this line-up. 

Moving effortlessly from What Is and What Should Never Be to Ramble On (YouTube video below), they shifted gears to Bonzo’s signature song Moby Dick, in which drummer Brian Wall aced (as usual) an extended “The Song Remains The Same” version of the drum solo. Next up was probably the highlight of the night for me, Bring It On Home. Michael’s bluesy emotive harmonica intro led into the explosive riff of the song.

Good Visuals – Always Part of Michael White’s Tribute to Led Zeppelin

They finished up the album with The Lemon Song, Thank You and Whole Lotta Love. Unlike October where they took a break before coming back for a second set, they went straight into No Quarter with White on keyboard and closed the show with When the Levee Breaks. They were back for one encore – a brilliant rendition of Kashmir complete with violins played by the same young ladies who also performed in the October show.

We all left the show wanting more, and more we shall get as this was just the second part in the discography series. The White will be back at The Sound Academy on Saturday, February 11th to perform Led Zeppelin III. (We have 20 tickets to giveway for that show – email us at tmakworld at gmail dot com, put “The White” in the subject line and include your name and address and we will randomly draw 10 winners to win two passes each on Feb 5). I’m very much looking forward to that show as it’s by far my personal favourite Zeppelin album. This intricate, technically challenging album will be difficult to reproduce on stage but it’ll be fun watching the guitarist playing slide with his bottle of Corona again on Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.

Michael White

VERDICT: See you at the Sound Academy on Saturday February 11th for Led Zeppelin III

– Steve Mallinson (guest contributor)

Check out our reviews of others shows in the Michael White and The White’s Led Zeppelin Discography Series:

Author: T-Mak