Hello Mike,
The one major difference between this Led Zeppelin tribute band and most other tribute bands, is that Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant are all still in pretty good health and able to preform on tour, obviously not to the extent that they once did, but they could most likely do a 10 or 15 gig tour. John Bonham's son Jason has sat behind the drum kit with the other three original members on several occasions and did very well indeed, so unlike Queen who lost Freddie Mercury their dynamic front man and going back even further when the Doors lost their irreplaceable front man Jim Morrison, those intricate pieces of a group just can not be duplicated and if I listen to Queen or the Doors music without Freddie or Jim, it's just isn't Queen or the Doors for me.
I will say that listening to Led Zeppelin with Jason Bonham instead of his dad isn't perfect, but Jason has learned quite well from his dad and his tremendous skills and having the other three original members with him adds to hearing a very close replication of the original line ups sound quality.
Having Jason Bonham playing Zeppelin music with three band mates doing their very best to sound somewhat like the original line up just doesn't work for me personally. It's extremely cool that Jason is trying to honor his dad's memory and legacy, but to really do that properly, he needs to convince Robert Plant to come back to the group and do things right.
Regarding tribute bands in general, I'm not sure why any really talented musician that feels that they are talented enough to play the music of any given iconic band for a living wouldn't want to form a new group and try to make their own mark in music history. To me, that would be extremely unrewarding just rehashing what someone else did rather that having the thrill of creating something new and having people love and accept it just as the original musicians of these iconic bands did in their day.
As always, just one old guys opinion.
Richard
