Live Review: Bonham, The Marquee, 1990

STLYE OVER SUBSTANCE

The weekend starts at the Marquee, and there's a capacity crowd to witness the appearance of BONHAM. I'm sure the name is familiar and, yes, it does help having a famous drummer dad (albeit deceased), especially when you name the band after him - LED ZEP who they? Of course we're talking Jason Bonham here, somewhat less chubbier than a few years ago. Young Thunderstick has assembled together a band of youthful, blond fluffyheads (no, not Hippodrome bimbos!). Hairstyles aside, they can certainly playm although the singer Daniel McMaster does sound...surprise, surprise...like a younger ROBERT PLANT. The music is of the epic, taut, and muscular variety, and the core of this is Jason's tight thunderous drumming...obviously in the family genes!

Bonham gets off to a good start with "Wait For You" the recent single lifted from their debut, The Disregard of Timekeeping, which showcases their aforementioned qualities. Also impressive are "Holding on Forever" and "Bringing Me Down," with Jason going manic on drums. Alas, things went more than a little awry after that. Predictably we got the drum solo, and, despite making all the right gestures, McMaster's voice, though similar, doesn't match Plant's anguished yell and sense of command. John Smithson skilfully juggled between bass and keyboards, but my attention was beginning to wane. Still, I spotted LED ZEP's old manager Peter Grant with ex-SEX PISTOLS Svengali Malcolm McLaren. I had visions of McLaren concocting his latest project, possibly Bonham crossed over with hip hop and sampling.

Towards the end Bonham did a few old Zep covers, like "Rock and Roll" and "Black Dog," but they were no more than adequate and offered nothing new, whilst a version of "Come Together" by the BEATLES was ponderous; it seemed they were clutching its straws.

Still the crowd was enthusiastic enough, and whilst Bonham were enjoyable on one level, I would suggest that they try to find some originality, become less derivative, and find a little more inspiration.

Mark Liddell
Photo: Paul Smith
Riff Raff
July 1990

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!