Within a couple weeks I was jamming with the Daly City Beatles tribute band, Ticket To Ride. Kent, the bassist, found room for my voice on both Paul's and John's vocal parts, and I really enjoyed learning a great deal of the later-era Beatles catalog during that early part of 1997. Unfortunately for me, a Beatles tribute needs all members to be instrumentalists in order to gig, and TTR graciously excused me in order to find their guitar-playing John, which they did shortly thereafter. But this first band experience was a very positive one, and I entered that summer determined to pursue music further.

In summer 1997 I contacted the Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones tribute audition the previous December. Lance shared a mutual interest in forming a Led Zeppelin tribute, and I approached Kent from TTR about joining us. Kent hopped aboard and recommended a new drummer acquaintance of his. When Lance, Kent, Jason and myself convened at Third Street Studios for the first time I knew we could do justice to Zeppelin's formidable catalog. After working up about 15 songs the name Night Flight was chosen (for non-fans: Night Flight is the name of a track on disc two of the 1975 album Physical Graffiti), and shows were duly booked for November.

Night Flight played a cluster of club shows around San Francisco in a three month span. The setlists were centered around Led Zeppelin's first four albums, with particular emphasis on Lance's ability to cop the tone and feel for Jimmy Page's work on albums I and II - including Page's dramatic violin bow displays. My favorites from the setlists were the obscurities, such as Out On The Tiles, The Wanton Song, and Since I've Been Loving You.