By rssfeeds-admin 
To mark the milestone, Jason Bonham — son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham — will bring his tribute band to Rockford next month.
Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening will take the stage at Hard Rock Live on Oct. 30, performing “Physical Graffiti” in its entirety.
For Bonham, 59, the show is more than a tribute — it’s a celebration of the music that shaped his life and the legacy of his father.
“I soon realized it wasn’t about me and my dad and my stories,” Bonham said. “It was about our love, all our love, for Led Zeppelin and the music. So, it just kind of grew.”
Bonham’s journey into music began in the 1980s when he arrived in the United States with his first band. It was during that time he realized the magnitude of his father’s fame.
“My band was opening up for The Firm,” he recalled. “People were just freaking out that I was John’s son. [People were asking,] ‘Can I touch you? Oh, my God.’ I was like, ‘What’s wrong with these people?’”
Even after Zeppelin got big, John Bonham was just “Dad,” the man who asked about report cards and raised his son in the English countryside. John died in 1980 when Jason was just 14.
Jason was playing drums at a near-professional level by age 5. His true passion though was motocross, and he was one of the top amateur riders in the UK. But after his father’s death, music became his full-time pursuit.
“I rode for two years after my dad’s passing,” he said.
It was after his bike failed him and knocked him out of a major British race Bonham realized his true calling.
“Maybe I wasn’t mentally ready to do the motocross,” he said. “It was always in the back of my mind like, ‘What if? What if you had gone musically?’”
Bonham eventually embraced his father’s legacy. But it wasn’t overnight. Being John Bonham’s son wasn’t always easy.
“In a 1977 motorcycle newspaper, it said, ‘Bonham drums up a storm: ‘Son of Led Zeppelin drummer is an up-and-coming rising star in the motocross world.’ Even then. Even in a different sport, I couldn’t get away from his shadow.”
Bonham would come to embrace his father’s legacy, however.
“It wasn’t until I went, ‘Yeah. That’s my dad. [But] I’m me,'” he said.
Bonham joined Virginia Wolf in 1985, a band that brought him to the states for the first time. He later formed Bonhman and recorded two albums, including “The Disregard of Timekeeping,” that went gold in 1990.
His post-Bonham years included studio projects and time in various bands like Foreigner, UFO and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. He won a Grammy for a live album and the concert film he did with surviving members of Led Zeppelin, 2007’s “Celebration Day.”
“I’m glad I got the opportunity to just be around them,” he said. “To do that one time and then it be released — I won a Grammy. And I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Bonham formed Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening in 2010. He is also a member of the bluesy-rock band Black Country Communion with Glenn Hughes, Derek Sherinian and Joe Bonamassa.
Tickets for the October 30 show at Hard Rock Live are available at hardrock.com.
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