Copyright 2003, Mark C. Knutson
Until now, the only Led Zeppelin concert video available was 'The Song Remains the Same', their 1976 release of Madison Square Garden concerts footage from July of 1973. This was released in theaters and later VHS and DVD formats, with many years of 'midnight moveies' screenings. As a performance document of an incredible rock band, it left much to be desired.
The concert footage was interspersed with fantasy sequences attributed to the band members and their formidable manager, Peter Grant, which ranged from distracting to asinine. Much of the concert film was shot close to the stage with wide angle lenses spending an inordinate amount of time centered on Robert Plant's groin with the characteristic wide-angle optical distortion exaggerating certain aspects of said groin. Still the movie was all we had, and we made the best of it.
There is no longer a need to make do: In May of 2003, Atlantic Records released of a three CD and two DVD set of live concert music and video. There is no overlapping material betweent the CDs and DVD. If you are deciding whether to buy I will make it simple: If you like Led Zeppelin and you like live music, this is as good as it gets.
Before I get down to brass tacks, there are a few general criticisms I will get out of the way. First, I don't know how they lost their way, but it has been some years since Zepp had good album cover graphics. I think they were doing well up to and including 'In Through the Out Door', but after that things have been surprisingly poor. There is a greatest hits package with the band members pasted into space suits, and the three CD set in question here is along the same lines with cutout photos pasted over what appears to be the Houses of the Holy album cover, with some random grey-black paint splotches cluttering the skyline. In this day of Photoshop, there is no reason a major label release should look like somebody's high-school art project. And the title, likely a reference to their breakthrough in America, is rather pedestrian as well. But the music is the thing here, and I would have been glad to buy it as a white label if necessary.
This is clearly a matter of personal taste, but for me there are three things I don't like about most live albums: Overlong guitar solos, drum solos of any length, and medlies. There are a few excesses along those lines here, but much more of the good stuff.
Given the challenges of capturing good sonics during stadium performances, and resurrecting them 30 years later, the sound quality here is remarkable. I only noticed a trace of 60-cycle hum on Page's Marshall, and there is no tape hiss to speak of. I imagine the latest technology was used to polish these tapes, and the result is surprisingly good.
Robert Plant: Plant's studio performances for Zepp demonstrated a remarkable vocal range and powerful falsetto that few other singers could match. His voice is fully engaged here with none of the range limitations that have marked other performances. He also avoided the improvisational excesses of some other live work.
John Bonham: Reported to be a drummer who hit the skins very hard, his work here is as good as ever. Eddie Kramer has done a good job capturing the drum sound, though I would have liked to hear more of the kick. While Bonham's style is very mainstream with the usual kick on the downbeat and snare on the backbeat, he seems to do it better than almost anybody else, and the drumming here is very tight with the rest of the band.
John Paul Jones: While playing bass, he keeps the chord roots covered and gets out there a bit on Dazed and Confused. His bass tone is muddy, likely reflecting the amplifier and stage micing technology of 1972. He also does the keyboard parts, though I don't recall hearing much of that here.
Jimmy Page: His guitar tone is pretty much the sound of a Les Paul driving a 100 watt Marshall stack, with him backing off the gain a bit for mellow passages. While no single person could re-create the multi-tracked guitar sounds of his studio albums, he does a good job of boiling the songs down to a single guitar, and the result is satisfying. His extended solos tend to lose the momentum of the songs, but once they end, the music gets back to business. The guitar has lost a lot of low end that I am used to hearing from a Marshall cabinet in person, but this was either a limitation of the recording or an artistic decision to keep the guitar tones out of bass and drum land.
I haven't had enough time for a full report, but I will give some intial impressions.
If you've ever wondered what it would have been like to see Zepp in their earliest years, there is a treat on the first DVD which alone is worth the price of the DVDs. That is a black and white set from the Danish TV show TV-Byen in which they play tracks off their first album. The studio audience is a bunch of youths politely sitting around them crosslegged like they are watching a reading of Beowulf. This footage is done without rapid cross-cuts and is riveting to watch. Jimmy is playing a Telecaster and a wide pan reveals that he is using a wah pedal and a Sola Tone-Bender fuzzbox. His guitar runs into a Marshall head and into a speaker cabinet I don't recognize. He plays the guitar with a violin bow during Dazed and Confused, but I can't watch this without remembering the part in Spinal Tap where the guitarist is playing a guitar by kicking it with his shoe and then he stops and adjusts the tuning on one of the strings.