Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening @ Palais Theatre. Celebrating Physical Graffiti – April 25, 2026
Review: Joshua Batten. Photos: Jason Rosewarne.
British-born drummer Jason Bonham has spent the last 16 years touring North America and Australasia with Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening (JBLZE), celebrating his late father John “Bonzo” Bonham and the music he made with Led Zeppelin. JBLZE have previously undertaken two successful Australian tours in 2018 and 2023. While those shows were more standard “greatest hits and more” affairs, JBLZE have spent the last year and a half presenting a setlist honouring the 50th Anniversary of Zeppelin’s 1975 double album Physical Graffiti, highly regarded by fans of the band. This is an interesting choice for Bonham & co, as Zeppelin themselves only played 9 of the album’s 15 tracks live during their time together as a band, with only 6 of those being played regularly. This means that instead of trying to recreate the magic of a particular Zeppelin concert, with all the changes to the arrangements from their studio counterparts, the Graffiti show is more focused on presenting the music as it was originally recorded. Indeed, the lack of rear screen projections as on previous JBLZE tours emphasises this as more of a recital with a focus on musicianship rather than spectacle.
The show opens with a radio collage of DJ’s hyping up Physical Graffiti as a brand-new record in 1975 before launching into the album’s opening two tracks, the funky “Custard Pie” and the swampy “The Rover”. As neither of these songs were given proper outings by Zeppelin themselves, these are faithful recreations of the studio versions with additional bells and whistles coming from samples. The harmonica heard over the PA in “Custard Pie” and later in other songs never comes from anyone onstage, so it’s unknown if these parts are played from samples or if there is an invisible harp player backstage!
While the entirety of Physical Graffiti is played throughout the show, several songs have been shuffled around in the setlist to retain an element of surprise and to make the songs flow better within a concert setlist. After greeting the audience and paying respect to the ANZAC soldiers who were honoured earlier in the day, we get the first surprise of the night as the band launches into “The Wanton Song” from Side D, keeping the energy up for a bit longer before heading into the slow blues of “In My Time of Dying”, followed by “Houses of The Holy” and the spiritually hypnotic “In The Light”, which has also been brought forward having originally opened up side C.
Even though these songs may be unfamiliar to more casual Zeppelin fans, one thing is clear – the musicians onstage are incredibly skilled and have studied the music intensely. Lead singer James Dylan may not look anything like Robert Plant, but vocally he is a dead ringer, mimicking Plant’s low dulcet tones as well as his famous high screams. Dylan is also an engaging frontman, regularly coming to the front of the stage to lock eyes with audience members, and outstretching his microphone for the crowd to sing along. Bass player Dorian Heartsong is also in a total state of flow, vibing to the music and never standing still, while keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Alex Howland takes on a lot more responsibility than he would in a standard JBLZE show, as he recreates the integral keyboard parts and guitar overdubs that limited the performances Graffiti material by the original Zeppelin quartet.
Lead guitarist Akio Sakurai, better known as “Mr Jimmy”, has spent his entire life dedicated to reproducing Jimmy Page’s parts, tones and phrasing. When not touring with Bonham, he has his own Led Zeppelin Revival show, where he dons faithful Page costumes and recreates the most specific live renditions of Zeppelin classics, based off live albums and countless bootlegs. Sakurai is comparatively more reserved in a JBLZE show, where he dresses casually in a T-shirt and jeans, and as many of the Graffiti songs have no live counterparts, Sakurai’s focus is much more on playing the parts accurately rather than embellishing his performances with choreography or changing up the solos. Of course, on the songs that were Zeppelin live staples, he does stretch out a bit more, especially on “In My Time of Dying” and later on “Ten Years Gone”, where he incorporates the country-style bends not included in the original.
The three acoustic songs on the album have been gathered together in the middle of the show, beginning with Sakurai picking up a Gibson acoustic in open C tuning to play a chorus-drenched rendition of “Bron‐Yr‐Aur”, accompanied by Howland providing droning chords underneath on another acoustic guitar with a violin bow. Bonham then takes on the role of comic storyteller, entertaining the crowd with stories about becoming a grandfather in recent years and about when he rehearsed as Phil Collins’ drummer for an aborted comeback in 2014. Following this brief but welcome reprieve from the musical intensity, he joins the band at the frontline with a sample pad, which he uses to recreate the echo and reverb laden drum sound on “Boogie With Stu”. Heartsong gets to take a mandolin solo on this one before handing the instrument over to Howland so he can pick up his bass again and join midway through “Black Country Woman”, the last of the acoustic-driven songs.
Two of the album’s deepest cuts follow – the mellow and breezy “Down by the Seaside”, and the 12-string guitar-led “Night Flight” – before the main set culminates in three of Graffiti’s best-known and most powerful songs. “Ten Years Gone” begins with a phone-lit crowd tribute to Bonzo, who is now “46 years gone” but clearly not forgotten. Then, after remaining seated for the entire show thus far, punters start gathering in the aisles to dance along to the funky clavinet-driven grooves of “Trampled Under Foot”. Finally, we get to the big one – “Kashmir”, which originally appeared at the end of Side B on the original album but makes much more sense as a main set closer in a live setting, as its reputation as a pinnacle of Led Zeppelin’s musicianship has only grown since its original release half a century ago. It’s a toss-up for fans between this and “Stairway to Heaven” as to which is their better epic.
With the entire Physical Graffiti album covered, Bonham declares his job done, but the audience isn’t having it, and instead of leaving the stage to make us demand the encore we all know is coming, he simply gages our energy by leading an acapella singalong of John Denver’s “Country Roads” before sitting back down at the drums for the final batch of songs.
Sadly, despite its inclusion in the set earlier in the week at the Sydney Opera House, “Stairway To Heaven” doesn’t get a look-in tonight, nor does “Good Times Bad Times” which has been featured at almost every other show on the tour. Instead, likely due to time constraints, Bonham and co simply give us the one-two punch of “Whole Lotta Love” and “Rock And Roll”, with Dylan leading the charge in audience singalongs and Sakurai fully embracing his “Mr Jimmy” persona by recreating the theremin and guitar solos in the former, and dancing the duck walk in the latter. This also gives those who didn’t attend the previous JBLZE tours a chance to see what they missed out on.
As the 2018 and 2023 JBLZE tours had almost identical setlists, the decision to venture into uncharted territory and focus on a double album with more deep cuts than classic hits is proof that at age 59, Jason Bonham is still finding ways to keep his show fresh while continuing to honour his father. The multiple generations in the crowd tonight is proof that there is still a captive audience who will pay to see Led Zeppelin songs performed live, and despite the hundreds of tribute acts across the world, this is still the closest they will get to seeing the real thing.
