Play‘s new Carbon Copy event got underway with a bang last night (Friday, 3rd September). Boot Led Zeppelin, a tribute band even I had heard of, were a bit of a coup for the small venue’s event debut night.

I don’t know how long Play (aka PlugnPlay studios) have been around – their main role seems to be as a rehearsal studio – but it looks as though they have begun branching out recently. According to their website they are running Weekend Warrior sessions for ‘lapsed musicians’, and now they have started this initiative of a tribute/covers band evening on the first Friday of the month.

Play are based in Milford Road (actually in one of the precincts branching off it) – there is a map on their website, which is probably essential unless you are already familiar with that maze of streets behind Caversham Road. Note that the map is on their home page, not the ‘Venue Info’ page, which confused me. Burying further into their somewhat confusing website (probably ’cause I’m getting old and easily confused), it seems they also have an established Saturday evening concert slot featuring local bands, titled Club Velocity.

The publicity said the evening was 7:30 ’til midnight; I turned up at 8:20 to hear an excellent rendition of Pink Floyd’s Money, which turned out to be part of the sound check. At 9pm the support band came on, Floydian Doors, playing a mix of Pink Floyd and Doors songs. Their music was extremely good, although – for most of the set – not that exciting. Pink Floyd, of course, are not particularly noted for their high-energy heavy-rockin’ style, and Doors music tends to the poetry-centric, so maybe that’s not so surprising, but still …

Near the end of their set they did The Great Gig In The Sky – the ‘screamy’ bit from Dark Sde of the Moon. Their female singer, who had been little used up to then, started a bit tentatively then gained confidence; you could see her presence growing along with her voice. For the remaining two songs, whenever she sang the band suddenly found a focus and a centre, and the music started to have passion and feeling. It was a pity it was so late in the set, really.

It took a while to break down and set up for the headliners: the size of the speakers they brought had me wondering whether I’d be blasted through the back wall of the small venue, but actually the volume was fairly restrained. Then the band opened with Black Dog – a good song for warming everyone up and getting a bit of ‘call and response’ going with the audience.

The essential question about a Led Zep tribute band is ‘which Led Zep are they paying tribute to’? Boot Led Zeppelin are very much an early-seventies, fourth-album-era, version. It’s not just that they played more songs from that album, but the vocal style was very much from then – without the smoothly soaring flight of the first two albums – as were the mannerisms and idiosyncracies. I guess that’s the nature of a ‘tribute band’.

The band really began to warm up through the Jake Holmes/Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin I monster Dazed & Confused, complete with bowed guitar – of course – and followed up with the big classics from II, III, IV and Physical Graffiti. Inevitably, but entertainingly, we had the double-neck guitar for Stairway to Heaven, the theremin on (I think) Whole Lotta Love, and the Middle-Eastern-sounding chord progressions on Kashmir.

It was all great fun, finishing with Rock and Roll some time after midnight. It was an enjoyable evening’s music, and I look forward to the Deep Purple tribute, Purple Project, next month.