In a "Tangerine" mood.

​Given the nature of the tribute band game, acts usually wow or disgust. There's not much room for gray area. When it comes to the real legends and the emotional attachments fans have to their records, bands like Led Zeppelin, it's go big or go home.

For example, "Achilles Last Stand," one of Zeppelin's most metal moments in my opinion, taught me about machine gun drums. "No Quarter" catapulted me into a 10-year foray of classical piano competition. "Since I've Been Loving You" made me fall in love, and "Black Dog" reminds me of high school summers and hot desert breezes, mingling with sweet acrid smoke from burning papers.

So when I heard Led Zeppelin 2: The Live Experience was coming to The Foundry this Wednesday, I was pretty stoked.

As a working tribute band for almost 12 years, LZ2 has the band's sound down to an artful science. But what stands out about the members is the acharade that is their live performance. Stepping into the roles of Robert Plant (Bruce Lamont), Jimmy Page (Paul Kamp), John Bonham (Ian Lee) and John Paul Jones (Chris Klein), LZ2 have honed their act to represent all the iconic elements from the band's heyday -- not to mention they all resemble their counterparts -- while incorporating some of their own touches along the way to provide a snapshot of Led Zeppelin for a younger generation.

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​Reptar makes it look easy. Y'know, the whole "band" thing. The whole build a fanbase, tour, release albums... all that. But the way that the fast-rising dance-pop band's career has evolved seems so by the book that it seems a little off. After all, didn't the digital revolution mean that everything bands knew about, well, everything had been upended? Altered? Fundamentally shattered? Maybe so, but Reptar is one of the rare acts that's followed a traditional path in its brief two-year lifespan, and one of the rare acts for whom that's worked.

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Silverback Management/Slightly Stoopid

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The members of Slightly Stoopid have been making music together for more than a decade.

Slightly Stoopid's sound is varied. Its six members wield an array of instruments including congas, harp, trumpet, keyboard and saxophone. They've toured with such legends as the Dave Matthews Band, Sublime (Bradley Nowell helped bring them to the public eye), Snoop Dogg, G. Love & the Special, Sauce and Pepper.

And although they aren't touring to promote a new album (their last was 2008's Slightly Not Stoned Enough to Eat Breakfast Yet Stoopid) fans can expect to hear a handful of new songs when the band comes through Mesa Amphitheatre this Friday.

Drummer Ryan 'RyMo' Moran sat down the Up On The Sun to dig into their record label and upcoming album, his top surfing locations, and the band's favorite post-show activity.

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Hanson has been a household name since 1997 when they made it big with their unforgettable song "MMMBop." You know, the one you could never get out of your head every time you heard it. But the three-brother band has moved on to bigger and better things now, like their chart topping latest album Shout It Out and making a point to give fans a ton of inside access via social media.
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​When Cactus Chainsaw's singer said the band's list of influences was possibly a higher number than his criminal record charges, I took it with a grain of salt (courtesy of a cheap tequila shot).

But within the first 20 seconds of listening to their music, I could hear the band's specific influences, from Ministry to Muddy Waters. It's a bit too simplistic to categorize them as bluesy metal -- just ask their fans, who label them everything from Southwestern rock to swamp metal to --wait for it -- desert hillbilly metal. Yes.

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Rebelution

After a concert cancellation on March 30 due to a band member's illness, Rebelution came back to Tempe last week on May 14 to play a make-up show and show off their one-of-a-kind reggae vibes. The four-piece band has got an awful lot of fans here, and their music is practically guaranteed to be heard at any apartment complex that's dominated by college students from ASU.Up On The Sun spoke to Rebelution bassist Marley D. Williams, and oh man, did he have a lot to say.



Everyone can appreciate a talkative bass player, since they seem to be few and far between (except for P-Nut of 311 and a few others). His outgoing personality is just another reason to watch him and his bandmates express themselves through their uplifting music.

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Jason Garcia

The Love Me Nots

​If you're looking for an example of the old platitude that "attitude is everything," you could do a lot worse than Love Me Nots vocalist/organist Nicole Laurenne. Less than a year removed from a breast cancer scare that forced the band into a five-month hiatus, Laurenne is back onstage and ready hit the road in support of the band's new album, The Demon and the Devotee.More >>

Nancy Mazzei

Bret Michaels is set to rock the Scottsdale waterfront this Friday in support of the Phoenix Children's Hospital and The Boy's & Girls Club of Scottsdale

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It's no real secret that I am a fan of Bret Michaels. I always had an appreciation for what he accomplished as the lead singer of hair metal band Poison back in the heyday of the Sunset Strip. I maintain that the rock/metal movement of the Sunset Strip in the 1980s is the one music scene I wish I could have been a part of -- I mean, can you imagine the people-watching back then? It's mind-boggling -- yet Michaels was the face of one of that scene's most beloved bands. Oh, to be there for of some of those parties.More >>