Been listening to and looking at a lot of Led Zeppelin over the last few days. Clifton lent me the “Led Zeppelin” DVD that came out in 2003 as well as the “How’s The West Was Won” CD’s that came out in the same year. Turns out that over saturation of Zep is a fine cure for the bout of food poisoning that I recently experienced.
Of course, being a diligent and earnest teen, I was very familiar with the catalogue. I remember learning to play the riff from Stairway to Heaven on the guitar as a kid. I remember one time at high school. It was the last day of the year and everyone had left. I had the dorm entirely to myself as I waited for my dad to pick me up. I CRANKED the Zep as loud as I could and positively, unabashedly, danced around my room to the song “Rock and Roll.” Looking back, I’m happy that this was not videoed but also happy to remember letting myself go so completely.
Hearing this music again in a new setting was fresh and fun and I got a chance to re-examine my attraction to this sound. I always knew they RULED! but maybe that’s kind of a juvenile, emotional response. What really makes me like it?
Well first of all. Bonham RULES!! Holy 28inch Ludwig. Fucking Hell! The band is so elastic and solid at the same time. He’s so over the top and stretchy with the time and yet so clear and so connected with Jones and Page that there is never any feel of sloppy.
There are two things that I feel affect me directly right now. Robert Plant’s singing. Sure, he can get screechy and annoying. Yes he’s stealing from the masters. All those things. One thing is for sure – he is taking risks in every single moment. He does not care about getting it right. His interest is in generating emotional drama in every second that he sings. If you heard a slight in-tune bend on the studio album, when he does it live he’s gonna take that bend and go as high as he can go regardless of the key just because its startling. If you are expecting a certain phrasing cause that’s what he did on the record, he ain’t gonna do it again. In every live track that I heard he deviates from the recorded version over and over again – sometimes even on the hooks. That’s cool. I respect that. I resonate with that. It’s not safe. Go Robert Plant. Live on the edge. Go with what you don’t know yet.
Second lesson from Zep: On the studio albums there are so many intertwined guitar tracks and overdubs. When they do these songs live they just strip it down to a quartet and do them anyway. The essential part of the tune remains. Everyone recognizes the tune anyway. Because we’ve heard the studio version so many times, our imaginative ear fills in the blank. I see so many bloated concerts these days. Everyone is touring with 12 musicians on stage because it just isn’t the song without that third guitar part or that accordion fill. That’s just poor song writing. The melody, harmony and riffs are so solid in their music that the overdubs are a delightful ornament and awesome on the headphones but they aren’t really needed live. Strip it down. Play with the players that you created the music with and rock out. That’s how you maintain the magical vibe without diluting with session players and “pro’s”
Some of the music is pretentious and no one really needs to hear a 14 minute drum solo or hear Jimmy Page play Bach riffs more than once but none of the music comes of dated. It is rocking so hard and is so unique and just slammin. OK -maybe you could tell where this was going. LED ZEPPELIN RULES! Yeah, I said it.
What I love about Zeppelin is how neatly they straddle the highbrow and lowbrow. In Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones you have music-schooled virtuosity, intricacy and complexity. In Robert Plant and John Bonham you have instinct and raw power. If it was all Page and Jones it would be pretentious prog metal and if it was just Plant and Bonham it would be fun but forgettable party music. They balance each other perfectly.
@Ethan: You nailed it. For me, there are two things about the band that really stand out; that you can move into and out of a Zep number from almost any genre of popular music for decades, its timeless; and the raw intensity of the music. Its shagging for world peace.