Drums’n’Percussion 2015
The Lightpower Collection features John Bonham Special on Drums’n’Percussion
The Drums’n’Percussion Festival in Paderborn is the largest festival for drums and percussion in Europe. World greats such as Ian Paice, Chester Thompson and Pete York regularly do the honours there. In this venerable setting, the Lightpower Collection presented a presentation of Neal Preston’s visual and audio documents tailored to the audience.
Festival founder Uli Frost, who met Neal Preston through Lightpower Managing Director Ralph-Jörg Wezorke, infected the photographer with his enthusiasm. So Neal Preston spontaneously agreed to put together a documentary special especially for drums’n’percussion.
The main topic was the legendary Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, whose energetic drumming inspired many of today’s greats in the 70s and with whose death in 1980 Led Zeppelin, one of the most famous rock bands of all time, disbanded.
From his archive, Neal Preston, in collaboration with his curator Dave Brolan, provided both visual and audio documents, including previously unpublished material.
The 8-minute short film was the opening programme of the top-class concerts. Even drumming legend and idol John Bonham’s Ginger Baker did the honours and performed alongside other first-class musicians such as Bernhard Purdie, PiTTi Hecht or Patrice Rushen.
The documentary could also be seen all day in a small exhibition area. In addition to an original drum set by John “Bonzo” Bonham, some original recordings of the Led Zeppelin band members were also shown as fine art prints.
In his personal video greeting to the Drums’n’Percussion audience, Neal Preston explained to the young drumming talents that he would like to show with his pictures where the roots lie and to convey that there is no future without origin. But it also becomes clear in this sensitive documentary that fame and glamour have their dark sides and that even an artist’s life sometimes shows all too human traits.
