John Bonham would have been proud of his son Jason starting off the tribute to Ahmet Ertegün on drums performing at The O2 millennium dome. Over 20 million people sought the 18,000 tickets offered for this concert via lottery system at $250 per pop.

This is the first time since 1980 that Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have played a full set together. That was the year that John Bonham partied too much and ended up choking on his own vomit.

This isn’t the first Led Zeppelin reunion, however, as shorter reunions were held in 1985 for Live Aid, 1988 for their 40th anniversary and in 1995 for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

While there have been many rumblings in the past, the rumors are now going full hilt that Led Zeppelin will do more than a reunion and actually go on tour. Robert Plant is said to be the resistant one to this idea, but perhaps a whole lotta love, money, and a short tour schedule will leave him less dazed and confused and help him to ramble on before the throng of cheering fans. Now, that would be heaven, now wouldn’t it?

But, now that its over 40 years later, I thought I would do an online investigation to see how many people were searching for the Beatles and Jesus in cyberspace. According to Wordtracker keyword service that tracks the words that people are searching for on the major search engines, 29,000 searches per day are for the Beatles.

Also, according to Wordtracker, Jesus pulls in about 7,500 searches per day. God comes in at about 3,000 searches on a daily basis.

What does this prove? Nothing in the larger scheme of things. This only goes to show that online, people are really into their music and the Beatles, who took a lot of heat back then, are still hot now at least in the world of the Internet.

The Pela lyrics are filled with rich imagery and metaphors that move along the stories in a meaningful way. For instance, here are some of my favorite lyrics from different songs within Anytown Graffiti:

i had a sideways stare like a signal flare

we’re walking through some fields of glass
up to our waist into our past

you seem to resemble
a window that stayed open too long

the sun beats down upon our town
the red faced angry folk stomp all around

From these lyrics one can see the excellent use of metaphor, imagery and emotional connection to the subject matter that Pela’s lyric writers are in tune with and cleverly craft within their songs. Until the album’s release date, Pela is posting a song a week for public listening through their website and they have posted their lyrics to Anytown Graffiti as well.

With the advent of music video, there has been an added visual element, which will further explain to some extent the meaning behind the music and lyrics. I haven’t always been a fan of this as well. First, since I’m a lyrics purist and second, because I’m also a song purist after that believing that music and lyrics should stand on their own without a further explanation needed.

Now, that I’ve created this long-winded explanation, I’ll come around to a recent exception to my high-brow puritanical approach to music and lyrics. Jogging on the treadmill at the local gym I was treated to something exceptional. The Gnarls Barkley music video of “Gone Daddy Gone” was playing and I was blown away.

This Gnarls Barkley video was one of the most inventive creations that I’ve seen in years. This is the first time that I’ve ever witnessed the blending of music, lyrics and video in such a complimentary, explanatory and symbiotic fashion. Let’s be clear that the music, lyrics nor video by themselves stand upon their own. Each needs the other two to truly function as a whole artistic piece.

What struck me is having listened to the music and lyrics, I did not understand the meaning of the relationship between the singer and his love interest before seeing the video. The Gnarls Barkley video made clear that there was a particular parasitic relationship going on and this brought the music and lyrics clearly into focus for me.

In times past, I have balked at the idea of music and lyrics needing a video to explain what should be plain enough had the band or artist done his or her job. But, Gnarls Barkley with their version of “Gone Daddy Gone” did not only one-up the Violent Femmes, who performed the original version, but blew them out of the water and took the song to a whole new level of meaning and complexity.

As you can tell by now, this is a rave review and I give Gnarls Barkley’s “Gone Daddy Gone” two drums way up.