Hudson Valley Led Zeppelin Fan Goes Global

I’ve worked in radio for decades, and I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to seeing some cool concerts. But I haven’t seen nearly as many concerts as New Paltz native Perry Kimlin. From what I can tell, Perry is about my age, but he’s been to over 1,300 shows at this point. That’s a lot of live music, way more than I’ve ever seen.

In fact, Perry told me that this past week alone, he has seen live music six out of seven nights, at 4 venues in four states with a total of 19 bands. That’s more than I’ve seen in the last decade. But, it is that love of music and live shows that has Perry Kimlin and a group of his friends going global. Yup, they will be on a website that is enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world. And it’s all because of a concert that they attended back in 1977.

Perry was contacted by ledzeppelin.com, the official website of Led Zeppelin. They were looking for permission to use the same image that is in this article for the timeline at ledzeppelin.com. Of course he said yes. Here’s a quote from Perry about how the banner in the image came about. “We saw Led Zeppelin on 6/7/77 at Madison Square Garden. When I say we, a group of 6 went to the show. In art class we created the banner. We were a bunch of 17 year old kids.  For me, it began an addiction to live music.”  What a cool story, and then to have the image on the official Led Zeppelin website? Beyond cool.

Big thanks going out to Perry Kimlin for sharing his story with us. And congratulations to him and his group of friends for going global. It’s not everyday that you get contacted by reps from one of your favorite legendary rock bands for permission to use your picture.