Led Zeppelin still bigger than the Beatles

What a weekend for Led Zeppelin! The band topped a BBC poll for "I'm in a Rock N Roll Band!" over the also short-listed Beatles and Queen. And John Bonham earned the nod for best drummer as well, during the week he would have turned 62 years old.

Here in the United States, I didn't know much about this until I received the following from Simon, a reader in England who was one of the first guys to fill me in on Led Zeppelin's reunion gig in December 2007. Simon says (he always does that):

The BBC has been running a series of programmes on TV & Radio these past 6 weeks to find the best Guitarist, best Drummer, best Singer, best Bassist and best Band. You might be interested in the results from the national poll:

• Best Band - Led Zeppelin (runners up - The Beatles & Queen)
• Best Guitarist - Jimi Hendrix (runners up - Jimmy Page & Slash)
• Best Singer - Freddie Mercury (runners up - Robert Plant & Kurt Cobain)
• Best Drummer - John "Bonzo" Bonham (runners up - Keith Moon and Dave Grohl)
• Best Bassist - Flea (runners up - no details, but John Paul Jones was in the top 10!)

For more info see http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/rocknrollband/.

Thanks for the above, Simon. And for more British perspective, check out the reliable coverage at TBL/Web.

I spent part of Sunday evening in the United States glued to my laptop where a last-minute tweet from @CrookedVultures alerted me to MTV Germany's live webcast of Them Crooked Vultures in concert at the Rock Am Ring festival, from a continent away. I grabbed my headphones so I could actually hear the bass of John Paul Jones.

Some fans corresponding with me on Twitter agreed that an extended jam in "Scumbag Blues" was unreal and unlike anything that had been done before. Following Jones's usual bass solo, Josh Homme and Alain Johannes traded Jerry Garcia-inspired guitar licks for a while, then Homme engaged Jones in some dueling, and then he returned to Johannes for a reprise of those Garcia-inspired guitar licks. All the while, the two-man rhythm section controlled the intensity with some real dynamic range.

"Spinning in Daffodils" also opened with a fine jam, and Josh Homme quoted Jim Morrison -- specifically, "Celebration of the Lizard" -- during set closer "Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up."

John Paul "F." Jones looked and sounded great, staying close to Dave Grohl, whose fills on "Spinning in Daffodils" were fast, and furious and complicated. This band really varies up the song arrangements and the way each member individually plays his parts. It really does remind me of a certain other band's live performances.