Every year we wrap up our August with a celebration of our wedding anniversary. This year we marked the event a few days early with a concert at one of our favorite local venues: the outdoor amphitheater at the Britt  in Jacksonville, Oregon. This fairly intimate (for an amphitheater) performance space has a capacity of 2,000, with both designated, fixed seating and a large expanse of general admission seating in the grassy bowl. It’s a pretty spot, too, with the bowl surrounded by towering pine and fir trees and a view out over the Rogue Valley all the way to the mountains to the east. I’ve never been to a concert there where the visiting performers didn’t rave about the site.

We were there to see Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, featuring the son of the iconic rock band’s drummer, John Bonham. Jason is a talented drummer in his own right and has played with many bands (and with Led Zeppelin for its 2007 reunion concert) before introducing the JBLZE in 2010, playing hits from all the band’s albums to packed houses of Zeppelin fans. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Physical Graffiti, the sixth album, and Bonham decided to mark that special occasion by playing the entirety of the double album in his performances this year. I am only a casual Zeppelin fan, unlike my husband, so I am unfamiliar with most of the songs on it, but I was up for an evening of good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll.

The band got started right on time, and the musicianship of each member was clearly on display. Jason interspersed the music with stories about his dad and the original band, moving between wry humor and a wistfulness for a man who lived hard and died too young. As darkness came on, about half an hour into the concert, we in the audience began noticing flashes of lightning off to the southeast of us. Most seemed to be of the cloud-to-cloud variety and quite distant, but there were several brighter, seemingly closer bursts as well. I kept wondering what the protocol was for this kind of weather and glancing up at the spotlight operators high in their perches above the crowd (not a place I’d want to be with lightning in the area!). The band played on, however, apparently oblivious to the lightning flashing behind the stage. Finally, around 9 p.m., after playing for 90 minutes, Jason announced that they had to stop playing, as the lightning was striking too close (within a mile of us), and we would have to disperse immediately. The crowd expressed its disappointment (the best songs had yet to be played, and all of the members of the band hadn’t been introduced yet!!), but we knew it was out of Bonham’s control.

Fortunately, weather did not affect our celebratory dinner a few days later. We booked an outdoor table at one of Medford’s nicer restaurants, Decant, known for a casual atmosphere and local, organic and sustainable ingredients. It’s housed in a 1920s-era home with limited indoor space but a large, covered outdoor deck, on this warm evening cooled by fans and misters. All the wait staff were friendly and efficient, especially Austin, our primary server, who kindly obliged by snapping a few photos to commemorate the occasion (we’re not too adept at selfies!). For a change, we decided to go no alcohol that evening, and I started with a cocktail that proved as refreshing as its name: Summer Breeze (Seals & Croft played in my head as I sipped),  made with coconut water, lime and honey … and not too sweet.

Harry ordered two items from the Firsts menu: truffle fries

truffle fries

and the Pork Belly Fritto, slow-cooked for 24 hours in the sous vide and doused in a Cuban-style mojo vinaigrette, cilantro and mint. Both were delicious, with the pork belly very tender and flavorful. I couldn’t resist the Dungeness Crab Tartlet, with large chunks of sweet crab offset by a few slices of spicy pepper nestled in a tender, flaky butter pastry and drenched in a fabulous yuzu Hollandaise sauce. I followed that up with a decadent, creamy wild mushroom risotto with Parmesan foam.  Thankfully, the portion wasn’t so large that I didn’t have room for dessert to celebrate our 44 years of (mostly) wedded bliss. Harry enjoyed a big scoop of house-made cherry-dark chocolate ribbon ice cream, so full of sweet fruit, and I had to have the dark chocolate mousse with a crisp raspberry meringue.

All in all, in spite of an abbreviated concert, our anniversary celebration was a great end to summer 2025.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor