History

1995 - 1996

In The summer of '95, drummer James Hogg put an add in Loot looking for musicians to form a tribute band to both Led Zeppelin and Queen. Guitarist Raff Achour responded and both met up in a pub in Covent Garden. After some music talk and several pints of bitter, the two hit it off and decided to get into a rehearsal room and see what would happen.

Naeng Sapsin was recruited on Bass followed by Colin on keyboards. Finding a singer proved to be more difficult. Steve, a vocalist joined the band for a one off gig at the Middlesex University summer ball in June 96. We played Zeppelin and Queen numbers under the name FRED ZEPPELIN. Colin quit the band soon after.

1997 - 2000

On Raff's suggestion, the band dropped the queen material and concentrated solely on Zeppelin. The band was renamed BOOT-LED-ZEPPELIN. In March, Harry Waters joined on keyboards, acoustic and electric guitars. Intensive rehearsals took place, building up the repertoire from the mellow acoustic numbers to the heavy rock stompers. Meanwhile, auditions for a singer seemed never ending. Eventually Charlie was recruited and we played our first gig on December 2nd at The Man In The Moon in Chelsea, London. The gig was a success and a great boost for the band.

Charlie however decided to leave the band. Fortunately a replacement was quickly found. In February 1998 Luke Ward filled in the duties of vocalist and showed to be the perfect candidate for the job. Numerous gigs followed played to enthusiastic crowds. In July, to Raff's disappointment, the rest of the band decided to call it a day and played their final gig at the Bradford Rio.

We reunited for a handful of gigs in 1999. In March 2000, we booked a studio in Camden and recorded our set. In October James moved to Yorkshire.

2001

Raff decided to reform the band from scratch with Luke on Vocals. Mark Wingfield joined on Bass, Matheu Martin on Drums and Steve Watts on keyboards. The band have now taken a more serious approach and are playing better than ever. The new line-up played their first gig on April the 15th at the Cartoon in Croydon. After a two and a half hour set the crowd were still asking for more. In July, Mark took a 6 months sabbatical due to other commitments. He was replaced for that period by Dan Davies.

2002

Mark is back on Bass. We are now playing more regularly, venturing as far as Crewe in the north and Exceter in the west...In the summer we made a short film based on a few scenes from The Song Remains the same (Hollywood here we come!). It's about 5mins long, the idea is to have it screened just before we take the stage. In September we performed at the Annual Led Zeppelin Fan Convention where we premiered our film intro and gave an electrifying performance. Raff also had a replica of Page's dragon suit made, and Luke raided more charity shops for blouses and girls jeans..

2003

A domestic year for the band..

In July Mark left the band again to spend more time with his wife and new-born baby girl. He still plays in the original outfit Flipron, a quirky imaginative band, definitely worth checking out.

In August Raff got married to his fiancée Penny. The band played at the wedding reception (in various degrees of sobriety). Previous band members James, Neang and Harry joined in the fun.

After Mark's departure, the bass duties were fulfilled by various deps until Jevon Beaumont joined at the end of the year.

2004

In February we played to a 750 strong audience at the Reading Concert Hall, our biggest gig to date. The show was a sell out and a great success. It nearly never happened when the fire alarm went off just before the start of the show.The whole building had to be evacuated!

Allegedly it was triggered off by someone lighting a cigar in the non-smoking auditorium.. But 15 mins later everybody piled back in and the show went on uninterpreted. Oh, and the bar ran out of beer!..

2005

A year later, almost to the date, we returned to the Concert Hall in Reading, again performing to a full house. This time with no fire alarm and a well stacked bar!
It was a great night which we captured on tape (I should say hard disc but tape sounds more retro!) and camera.
Plan is to release a DVD of the show in early 2006.

In May, We performed at the Zep Express, a Led Zeppelin Convention of which all proceeds went to the ABC Trust.
On the 1st August, Raff's wife Penny gave birth to a baby boy, Sunny. August was a quite time for the band as Raff was learning to play Daddy!

In December, we headlined the First Night of the Progs, a three tribute band event which took place at the Hexagon in Reading. This again was a record for us playing in front of 1500 people. It was a fantastic night and the whole band are excited about things to come.

2006

The saga continues...