Just days before fall officially arrived, my husband and I saw summer out with, fittingly, an outdoor concert at our favorite local venue, the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Ore. The amphitheater with a large grass seating area and reserved bench seating for about 650 maintains a fairly intimate feel with a total capacity of 2,200. Assorted food trucks and food, wine and beer vendors offer refreshments, but patrons may bring in their own food and drink as well, and many come early, stake out their lawn seats and enjoy a picnic. In the past few years a few concerts did not permit outside beer and wine, and such was the case on this evening when we came to see the Led Zeppelin tribute band Get the Led Out. We missed bringing our own vino, but we nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed the music. We opted for the up-close, reserved seating this time, leaving the mad scramble for the first-come lawn seating to younger folk (although the majority of the audience appeared to be in our baby-boomer set) and found ourselves two rows up and about 30 feet from the stage. I really appreciated being that close and being able to observe the musicians play.   There was no opening act, and the six members of Get the Led Out are all very talented artists bound by a common desire to perform the Zeppelin oeuvre as close to the original recordings as possible. Thus the need for six musicians as compared to the four of the original band, which used a lot of overdubbing of vocals and instruments on their tracks. The Philadelphia-based band played a range of songs from throughout Led Zeppelin’s history, from the well-known to the more obscure, hard rockin’ to almost folk-like, acoustic numbers.   Paul Sinclair did justice as the lead vocalist, and guitarists Paul Hammond, Jimmy Marchiano and Phil D’Agostino each displayed amazing skill and talent. Andrew Lipke multitasked with keyboards, guitar, percussion and vocals; and Adam Ferraioli brought a tremendous energy and fierce ability to the drums. Altogether, the band played for nearly two and a half hours, with one intermission. The final numbers of the encore, “Stairway to Heaven”   and “Whole Lotta Love,” brought down the house and provided a rousing send-off to summer.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor