Led Zeppelin's one and only Tucson concert - on June 28, 1972, at what was then called the Tucson Community Center - was the final show on the English rock band's 1972 North American tour.
It was memorialized on a bootleg tape, which was common practice back then. If you listen to tracks - you can find them scattered on the Internet - you'll hear Robert Plant in fine scratch vocal form and Jimmy Page putting a hurt on the guitar. Drummer John Bonham is a man possessed with pulsating rhythms matched by John Paul Jones' wonderful thumping bass lines.
If you close your eyes and picture the scene, it's easy to imagine that this was not merely a concert. It was an event, one for the ages, and one that, sadly, was never repeated within the Tucson city limits. In the years that followed, Tucson was never included on the band's North American tour schedule. The group broke up in late 1980 after Bonham died.
Tucson's own Whole Lotta Zep tribute band will re-create that night on a smaller scale with its show Saturday at Club Congress. The band - guitarist Pete Fine, bassist Stefin Gordon, drummer Brian Gunning and vocalist Ray Buckwich - will perform the same set list Led Zeppelin played that night:
"Immigrant Song," "Heartbreaker," "Black Dog," "Over the Hills," "Since I've Been Loving You," "Stairway To Heaven," "Dazed and Confused," "What Is and What Should Never Be," "Dancing Days," "Moby Dick," "Whole Lotta Love (Medley)" and "Rock 'n' Roll."
Whole Lotta Zep has built a solid reputation over the years for informed and exciting dead-on performances of Led Zeppelin's blues-rock music.
If you go
• What: Whole Lotta Zep in concert.
• When: 7 p.m. Saturday.
• Where: Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St.
• Cost: $7 at the door.
