Most of you guys probably never heard of either. Port Jefferson is a town midway in Long Island on the north shore. I have decided whether to drive or put the car on the ferry boat to get there.

Zebra is a trio of rockers who had a few albums out in the 80's. Randy Jackson, the guitarist did the singing and he is an extraordinarily talented guitar player. They used to do cover songs of Led Zep, Rush, Moody Blues which were very impressive. The vocal range of the Jackson was amazing also. He could do the blues snarl of Robert Plant, but also crank it into the stratosphere like Geddy Lee of Rush. I remember seeing them live at a bar called Hammerheads I think many years ago. Download their version of Stairway to Heaven or Heartbreaker or anything from audiogalaxy to check them out. Jackson actually does shows at major cities of all Led Zep music with symphony orchestras. In this pic he even looks like Page.

http://www.thedoor.com/gallery/Randy_03.jpg

I remember their demo sounds a Long Island radio station would play sounded great. They go a contract with Atlantic Records and the long awaited first album was a total let down and watered down version of what they were.

http://www.thedoor.com/gallery/Randy_28.jpg

I will bring a digicamera for some new pics hopefully.

What a trip. I was making good time and heading for the Throgs Neck Bridge when some some idiot's car catches fire a mile ahead so all the pervert voyeurists motorists have to slow down and stare and make traveling one mile last half an hour. After the NY authorities extorted $3.50 for the "toll" I proceeded on the so-called highways around New York City and they have to be the worst in the world outside of Afghanistan. Potholes, inverted pothole -- like someone put basketballs under the pavement, uneven drains set up every 100 feet. There is usually a graffiti covered truck right along side or a cement jersey barrier so it is difficult to avoid the crappy road conditions. The roads north of the Long Island Expressway are pretty good nothing but car dealerships, auto body shops and gas stations. True post WWII Americana. ;) Actually I was going to stop by some of the dealerships, there were a bunch of brand new WRX's (the wagons are cool), Z28's, Firebirds, and Mustangs lined up at various establishments.

You know you are in Port Jefferson when you start to see dive bars with Harleys lined up in front on them. The Village Pub is a very small place and the sound system (PA) was the worst I had ever heard totally distorted and no clarity. Even wearing special earplugs the vocals were painful to listen to.

The opening act http://www.jradrocks.com/ was basically a freak show but was interesting. A 14 year old kid wailed on guitar and his 12 year old brother played drums, in addtion to a seasoned bassist and guitarist. The kids were exceptional. Is it even legal for them to be in a bar serving alcohol? They did their own jams to showcase their talents and did Ozzy's Crazy Train and a Joe Satriani song if you can believe it.

http://www.deecken.com/jim/kid.gif

At 12:15AM Zebra finally starts up. There were some techinical difficulties and the PA still sounded like crap but it was nice to see them again. They did some new songs from an upcoming CD and did their renditions of some Zeppelin tunes. Looks like Randy got a new PRS.

http://www.deecken.com/jim/randy.gif

Here is the Throgs Neck Bridge at 2:30AM. All I had was iced tea. Absolutely no alcohol.

http://www.deecken.com/jim/throgsneck.gif

Wowsa, it seems like yesterday that I saw these guys. Well, heading out to the Patchogue Theatre now to watch them once again.

http://www.thedoor.com/

The world's most famous unknown band, The Good Rats are the opening act.

Click for a sample of Good Rats. Adults only...

http://www.goodrats.com/tunes.htm

OMG, The Good Rats focking sucked. I think the vocalist was an original member of the band, not sure about the others though. I guess they mic'd the bass players subwoofer, I didn't see any mic on the bassist's Harkte stack, and cranked it up on the PA big time. Definitely one of the loudest, most bone rattling bass, though extremely simple bass work. That was the only thing notable really, since they totally sucked. Good thing I brought ear plugs.

Zebra was impressive as usual. The drumming by Guy Gelso was outstanding. He adds a tremendous amount of detail to each song for someone who is a power drummer. Guitarist/Vocalist Randy Jackson was using one of these...

http://www.transperformance.com/perform/index2.htm

A Transperformance equipped Les Paul that was also equipped with the special pickup that feeds a Roland VG88 VGuitar System. The result is broadcast out of a KJL half stack and mic'd to the PA. It is an amazingly versitile guitar setup possible. Jackson uses alternate tuning and when a song came up that incorporated a slide, he just pushed a button the the Les Paul and the Transperformance made the adjustment to smoothly change the tunings. Actually hearing is change tuning is cool also as the demos on their site illustrate.

I meant to ask you how it was - I was definitely not up for heading all the way up to Long Island last night. Thanks.

Snouter, when headed back to LI again a cool place ya may want to check out is http://www.mulcahys.com/index_mulcahys.htm
and perhaps http://www.funkymunkylounge.net/

Sparrow, thanks for the info.

I don't know what your experience is on I-495 NY, but it appears that the troopers on the Long Island Expressway tolerate speeds of 70-75 which are about 20 MPH above the posted speed which is much cooler than the Wilmington, Vermont nazis who write tickets for that kind of thing.

No_Brakes, being so used to standing, I was really not that excited about watching a concert from a seat, but it turned out to be pretty good although they really should have played more stuff. We were sitting about 5 rows back which helps, but it was a nice old theater and the stage was easy for everyone to see. There was some kind of biker convention so there were quite a few biker types in the lobby. I didn't mind since I figured that made the parking in the vicinity a little safer. :p There was a good police presence in the town though which was comforting. One of the funniest things I saw was an apparently troublemaker being "escorted" out by some old dude who looked to be in his 60's.