The band: Mothership
The venue: Pacific Road Arts Centre
Location: Birkenhead Wirral
Date: 03/02/2012
When you go to see a tribute band you know roughly what you are going to get. In some cases it is the nearest you may come to seeing your real life heroes. I never saw Led Zeppelin live and it is now impossible to see ever see the original line up even if those who are left were to play again. So when the opportunity came to see a Zeppelin tribute band I thought why not. I have been to see a lot of tribute bands in the past including the Australian Pink Floyd and Limehouse Lizzy. Some of the bands have been great and some have been decidedly so so. Sadly this fantastic venue is under threat of closure so it was possibly a last opportunity to see anyone perform here.
The last Zeppelin tribute band I saw here were Awholelottaled and they were OK if not surprisingly the “real deal”. I had high hopes for Mothership and the band came straight on with no support to warm the crowd up for them and launched into their set which included classics such as Rock’n’Roll , Black Dog, Whole lotta Love and of course Stairway to heaven, never my favourite track at the best of times. A storming set of 2 hours was only marred by technical problems with the sound. At times all I could hear was the ringing of Hi Hats and at others the speakers in the PA sounded as though the cones had been ripped out. The acoustic section of the performance was held up while they found a new battery for the pick up on the jumbo acoustic.
Some excellent guitar work accompanied vocals that were at times the nearest thing I had heard to the original so far. When they were good they were very good and when they were not so good they were still OK. Kashmir and the Lemon Song were for me at least the highlights of this performance and yes I would go and see them again