Led Zeppelin
Pull a thread
The Night Heart Played "Stairway to Heaven" Back to Led Zeppelin, With John Bonham's Son on Drums
Kennedy Center Honors, Washington, 2 December 2012: Ann and Nancy Wilson sing the song they learned in Seattle bars, and the man behind the kit is wearing his dead father’s hat.
First, the correction
The premise that started this piece was “Heart’s drummer is the son of Led Zeppelin’s drummer.” That is wrong today. Heart is on the road in 2026 with Sean Lane on drums (The Rock Revival). The show people remember, the one that keeps getting passed around, is older. It happened at the Kennedy Center Honors on 2 December 2012, went out on CBS on 26 December, and it spawned a whole tour the following year. That night is what this piece is about.
Rush's Fifty Something tour has no drum solo
Geddy Lee gets asked the same question every night: is Neil “with” them? His answer involves a bird. The band’s actual answer is an empty spot in the setlist. It’s the rarest solution rock has ever found to an impossible problem.
The bird in the doorway
A Toronto radio DJ, Joanne Wilder of Q107, asked Geddy Lee the question everyone wants to ask and nobody quite knows how to phrase: do you feel like Neil is with you? Have you seen any signs?
Deep Purple split in 1973 — and grew back as four bands
Ian Gillan says “outside influences” broke Mark II. Ritchie Blackmore says two alpha males who couldn’t share a room. Neither version explains the stranger part: what the wreckage built.
Five guys in a van in 1968. By 1980, if you had a rock station on, you were hearing Rainbow, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the same hour — and the people in those four bands had mostly stopped speaking to each other. One argument, four discographies.
The Violin Bow on a Guitar: The 60-Year Lineage From Eddie Phillips to Metalcore
A cello bow dragged across guitar strings sounds like a ghost every time it resurfaces, and it keeps resurfacing. This is the chain of custody, from a 1966 mod-rock single to a metalcore stage in 2026.
There’s a clip going around right now: a guy pulls a violin bow across an electric guitar and the comments lose their minds like the technique was invented last Tuesday. (The clip is by Artem Komlev, an independent creator, and credit where it’s due, it’s a great 30 seconds.) The bowed guitar has a habit, though: every generation discovers it, thinks it’s new, and makes it sound like a completely different instrument.