Waterbury Native Expert In Led Zeppelin, His Book Proves It

Mike Tremaglio is a native of my hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut. He's lived in Southington for the past 34 years, and recently retired from the corporate insurance world in Hartford. Mike is also one of the world's leading authorities on all of Led Zeppelin's 500+ live performances, and as you can see in the photos above and below, he wrote the book- Evenings With Led Zeppelin - The Complete Concert Chronicle - to prove it. How the hell did he get get involved with the best rock band of all time? I just spoke to Mike, and here's what he told me.

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I met Mike when I was a baby, I don't remember it, haha, but it happened. See, our fathers coached the Waterbury South End Bears football team together, and Mike and my older brother Mark were the team managers/water boys.  Mike sent me this team photo, which just blew me away.

Growing up in Waterbury, Mike's older brother Vance helped form his love of music, just like my older brother Mark did for me. Mike attended a lot of the classic rock shows at Waterbury's Palace Theater, like the legendary Aerosmith concert, and he was also there to see the Ramones first appearance outside of NYC as they opened up for Johnny Winter at the Palace on July 11, 1975.

1973 was the year that Led Zeppelin got their hooks in deep after Vance turned him onto Led Zeppelin's incredible 5th studio album - Houses of the Holy. Mike tried to get tickets for the 1975 tour, but missed out. Then came 1977, and in gym class, a buddy showed him a full page ad in the New York Times advertising Led Zeppelin's upcoming June 7, 1977 concert at the World's most famous arena, Madison Square Garden in NYC. Well, Mike and his brother scored 6 tickets to this legendary performance, and the rest, they say, is history. Here's a video of the concert:

Mike worked in the book and publishing world over the years as the Marketing VP for Grolier/Scholastic in Danbury. He devoted countless hours developing iconic children's authors' works, like the one and only Dr. Seuss and Disney. He also worked for many years at the Weekly Reader Corporation in Middletown. Music was always his passion though, particularly for rock, and especially for the Kings of Rock - Led Zeppelin. So, he started contributing to Led Zeppelin fan sites, and through his hard work and commitment to details, caught the attention of his co-author - author, Tight But Loose fanzine publisher, and leading chronicler of Led Zeppelin, Dave Lewis..

Mike and Dave worked together to release Evenings With Led Zeppelin: The Complete Concert Chronicle in 2018. Due to the both authors 100% commitment to proven content with no speculation, after a few more years of hard research, they just released an expanded and revised second edition tomorrow (September 23, 2021).

Mike was kind enough to send me an advanced copy of his life's work, and it is to put it mildly, incredible. It's 624 pages about EVERY concert that the mighty Zep ever played, including photos, ticket stubs, playbills, set lists, and every other pertinent bit of information you could possibly want to know about each of the 500+ times that Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham ever stepped onto a stage together.

It amazes me when you see a work of art that you can tell years of love and labor was put into it. That's what you get with Evenings with Led Zeppelin: The Complete Concert Chronicle. It is incredibly detailed, you truly see every detail about the journey that made these four men into icons.

I asked Mike how long it took to source all of this material, and his answer was years. In fact, he told me that he spent 30 days researching and sourcing ONE page of his book.

Mike told me "I didn't want to do 'A' Led Zeppelin book, there are plenty of those already, I want to do 'THE' book on Led Zeppelin". Respect sir, you have.

Evenings With Led Zeppelin: The Complete Concert Chronicle - Revised and Expanded Edition is available for pre-order right now, and will be officially on-sale tomorrow (Sept 22, 2021). Click HERE to order it from Barnes & Noble, or HERE from Amazon.