The next stop in the "Friday Night Live" series will be this Friday (October 5th) at Shark City (www.sharkcity.com), 2240 Bloomingdale Road in Glendale Heights. Join me as I perform my show live 7pm - 12midnight from there, and as always, I will be packing cool Loop prizes, concert tickets, etc. to giveaway. Drink specials courtesy of Bud Light (always worth it)... see you there!

Also, all this week on the show, I will have coveted tickets to Van Halen and Velvet Revolver to give away. Don't miss out!

Aerosmith has rescheduled their concert at the Allstate Arena for this Monday night. Same time, same lineup, same venue, just a new day. Tickets for the previously scheduled show will be honored then. Some good seats were just released, so if you were hoping to go, now you can!Starting at 5pm, I will be reporting live from the scene and then doing my show live 7pm - 12midnight from there. We'll be playing plenty of Aerosmith tunes before AND after the concert to help get you in the mood and then get you home with the "Aerosmith Post-Concert Rock Block." If you are headed to the show, come by and say hello. If you can't make it, you'll feel like you were there.

This Friday will be the next "Friday Night Live" stop, this time at Q Billiards sports bar (www.qbilliard.com) at 8109 S. Cass (I-55 & S. Cass) in Darien. I'll be doing my show live from there 7pm - 12midnight, packing lots of cool Loop prizes, and of course, Bud Light (Always Worth It) specials. Hope to see you there!

The next "Friday Night Live!" stop will be this Friday night (September 21st) from 7pm - 12midnight at Tom Kelley's Chophouse and Pub (www.tomkellys.com) at 495 DeGroate Road in New Lenox. Join me as I broadcast my show live with lots of cool Loop prizes to give away, a preview demonstration of the killer new video game "Rock Band" (www.rockband.com), and of course Bud Light (Always Worth It) specials. Come join the party!

Led Zeppelin has indeed confirmed that they will be reuniting for an Ahmet Ertegun tribute show in November.

Led Zeppelin will reunite for a charity concert in honor of the late Atlantic Records founder and chairman Ahmet Etergun on November 26th at the O-2 Arena in London. Robert Plant tells the B-B-C they decided to reunite because of their love for Ertegun, who signed the band. "We wanted to pay tribute to the effect that he had on our careers. We said, 'Let's see if we can do it.'" Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones will be joined by Jason Bonham, son of late Zep drummer John Bonham. This will be Led Zep's first public performance since Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary party in 1988 and their first performance of any kind since they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Ertegun died last year at the age of 83 after falling backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in New York.Promoter Harvey Goldsmith asked the band to do a 30- or 40-minute set, but they didn't make a final decision until rehearsing for a week. They were comfortable with the sound and came back to say they would play at least two hours.The show will also feature Pete Townshend, Bill Wyman and the Rhythm Kings, Foreigner (also with Jason Bonham on drums) and Paolo Nutini. Additional guests will be announced. Profits from the show will go to the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund, which gives scholarships to universities in the U-K, U-S and Turkey.Tickets will be sold through a lottery system, but within minutes of the announcement, an estimated 20-million fans around the world rushed to register at AhmetTribute-dot-com, which crashed the site. According to service provider Pipex, around 80-thousand fans a minute have attempted to register at the site. All successful applicants will be entered into a random drawing for tickets.

And this update just in...

The deadline to register for tickets to Led Zeppelin's reunion concert on November 26th at the O-2 Arena in London has been extended to 7:00 a-m [ET] on Wednesday, September 19th. Upwards of 80-thousand people per minute (five-million per hour) have been attempting to register for tickets at www.AhmetTribute.com. In a 12-hour period yesterday (Thursday), there were 89-point-five million attempts to register at the site. The website has now been moved to its own server and is running smoothly. You should only register your name once, as the system is designed to pick out names at random and remove multiple entries. Successful applicants will be limited to a pair of tickets per household.

Beginning Friday (and for the next 3 successive Friday's after that), I will be bringing my show live out on the road to a neighborhood near you. Dubbed "Friday Night Live!" (get it?), my first stop will be this Friday (September 14th) at Cullinan's Stadium Club at 116th & S. Western (11610 S. Western) on the south side from 7pm - 12midnight. I will have Steve Vai concert tickets, Blackhawks tickets, premiere movie passes and lots of Loop gear to give away. The folks at Budweiser (who are sponsoring the tour) will have lots of drink specials, and you can of course then make your requests live from the bar! Come on out, bring your friends and join the party. Hope to see you there!

Took in some more great Loop shows lately. Cheap Trick played Naperville's Last Fling celebration, and it was a blast. Some 10,000 Loop listeners packed the hill near the riverfront on a beautiful evening for an energetic headline set from Robin, Rick, Tom and Bun E. Somewhat miraculously, Robin Zander's voice has survived years of road work perfectly intact as he tackled their new songs as well as their classics with equal aplomb. After I brought them on stage and checked out the show, a cocktail party-like atmosphere ensued afterwards. Tom Petersson and I shared some laughs about dating the same girl (not at the same time, though!) and I had a chance to catch up with the rest of the guys as well in the casual atmosphere. Great fun, contagious show. Cheap Trick is still a rush.

(See Cheap Trick perform "Surrender" here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pD8ymBR2Ufo)

(See Cheap Trick perform "Ain't That A Shame" here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_E5L4MwMzzM)

Speaking of which, Rush stepped on stage after an introduction from me to a deafening roar from the 20,000 + Loop listeners at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre this past Saturday night. Another crown jewel in the Loop's 30th Anniversary Concert Series, Rush was welcomed in a near delirious fashion. The band played many rarely-heard-in-concert gems like "Circumstances" as well as a healthy dose of numbers from their latest effort "Snakes & Arrows", just as Geddy Lee had promised they would on my show the previous week. The guys were uber excited to be playing Chicago again, and it showed. Geddy filmed some shots of the audience from the stage with his personal camcorder "for the folks back home", and Alex Lifeson was bouncing around like a pogo-stick on caffeine. Even the usually all-business Neil Peart was pulling faces and grinning from ear-to-ear as he furiously pounded out the best licks heard on drums since John Bonham and Buddy Rich. As they have on recent tours, the visual gags were in ample evidence this time around too, with big-screen song introductions from SCTV's "Bob & Doug"and "South Park" and three chicken rotisserie's (complete with attending chef) where Geddy's bass amps usually would be. All-in-all, it was a brilliantly delivered "evening with Rush" (no opening act needed), with great sound AND fun sights. Give 'er! Beauty, eh!

(See Geddy Lee of Rush clown around here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gwpGXfHmY-A)

(See a fan's terrific home-made video for Rush's latest "Far Cry" here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=G-6SZZv91_w)

Led Zeppelin reunion rumors are heating up again with a press conference scheduled for Wednesday September 12th. Expect the surviving members of Led Zeppelin to announce a reunion gig in honor of the man who signed them to a record deal (Ahmet Ertegun) at London's new O2 arena on November 26th with Jason Bonham sitting in for his late father on drums. Whether this one-off gig will translate into a possible tour remains to be seen. Led Zeppelin has reunited only sporadically in the ensuing years since Bonzo's death. In 1985 they played at Live Aid, played together at their Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 1995, at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary celebrations and jammed at Jason Bonham's wedding reception. Unfortunately, none of these resulted in a full-scale reunion or tour, so the pattern doesn't look good for anything more at this point. In the meantime, several "new" Led Zeppelin releases are planned for November. A new 24 track "best of" entitled "Mothership" November 13th, and the re-release (remastered with bonus tracks) of "The Song Remains The Same" concert on CD and DVD November 20th.

(See Led Zeppelin perform "Kashmir" with an introduction from Ahmet Ertegun here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5pLEXy71Fxs)

Lead singer/bassist Geddy Lee of Rush checked in with me on the show this week. I've been friends with the band since their early days, so it was great to catch up and have a few laughs. Geddy told me the band is particularly looking forward to playing Chicago, because of the rabid following the band has in this area. He indicated to me that they would be playing more obscure tracks from their catalogue than in recent tours and several from the new disc "Snakes & Arrows." Rush fans are familiar with their very dry/silly, non-sequitor type of humor, which Geddy assured me would be on full display again this time around. I took Geddy by surprise when I asked him if they would perchance be performing the song "Liquor & Whores" (a comedy side-project they have recently been involved in back home in Canada) as an encore, sending him into fits of laughter. Upon containing himself, he replied that unfortunately they would not, but perhaps on a future tour. If you have not seen Rush before, do yourself a favor and take this opportunity to see a one-of-a-kind band.

(See Rush perform their classic "Finding My Way" here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=D0DfWlgLByg)

Mattias Jabs, lead guitarist of the Scorpions also made an appearance on my show this past week. We chatted about their phenomenal new album "Humanity Hour 1" and the anticipation they also feel at getting to play in Chicago again. Mattias said to expect a fall or early next year stop here in town. Keep it locked on the Loop for the latest info and a chance to win tickets when the show date is officially announced.

(See the Scorpions new video for "Humanity" here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1w9AukcojEc)