Jason Bonham says that he was able to live out all of his LED ZEPPELIN fantasies when he performed as part of the band on December 10, 2007 at London’s O2 Arena. Bonham, who’s currently on tour with his critically acclaimed LED ZEPPELIN EXPERIENCE production, told the Cleveland Scene about the rehearsals for the now-legendary concert: “No matter where I was staying, whether it was three miles away or a hundred miles away, in the week, I would generally be late three or four times by 20 or 30 minutes and those guys [the surviving members of LED ZEPPELIN: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones], I couldn’t believe that they were always there on time or even early. I’d walk in and they’d be sitting there reading a newspaper waiting for me to get there. When I look back now, I see a very, very fond memory of the three of them, I’d walk in and they’d go, ‘Oh, okay, well, he has arrived. His Lordship is here.'”
Bonham knew that the show would be attended by thousands of people and he wanted to make sure that his performance would do justice to the memory of his father, late LED ZEPPELIN drummer John Bonham.
“I wanted to rehearse,” Jason said. “We rehearsed and we rehearsed and we rehearsed. It was a great experience, not only just doing the show, but to get to know [Robert, Jimmy and John], you know, now [that] I’m much older than I was [when I was] this little kid running around the studio. To talk to them and occasionally just to share music. Like, I’d give Jimmy ride a home and I’d play music in the car and see what he thought of different bits of music that I was listening to and either turn him on to something or he’d turn me on to something. It was the same with Robert; we’d go out locally when I was back home. So, yeah, to go out to an Indian restaurant guys and we sat there and nobody really knew what we were talking about and at the time, we were talking about doing the ZEPPELIN reunion show at the O2. It was surreal, to say the least. I sat there and I’m going, ‘Oh my God, this is really going to happen.’ And from the moment we started, it was a special show. Once we got the first three songs and kicked into ‘In My Time Of Dying’, I felt it was very, very special. It kind of got better and better. I’m very blessed.”
Bonham, who received raves for his 2007 performance, recalled the thrill of sitting behind the drums for his dad and playing the one-off gig. “I kept saying, ‘I really am playing drums for LED ZEPPELIN!'” he told The Pulse Of Radio in 2012. “This really is something special, something I dreamed about all my life in a very strange way.”
Source: Blabbermouth
