Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Delivering Presence - Led Zeppelin Celebration Day


Celebration Day -  Led Zeppelin at the O2

I wore my bell bottoms, or flares as we called them there and then, afghan coat, Jimmy Page t-shirt (licensed), and a smidge of patchouli - about 1/100 of a dose, as I didn't want to cause the whole cinema to riot - and called myself properly dressed to go to a Led Zeppelin concert.




This was the one-off showing of the film of Led Zeppelin's December 2007 Ahmet Ertegun charity concert at the O2 arena in London. Yes, we waited five years for Zeppelin to show it on big-screen video, even though the service, whose name I can't remember but was something like Fat Home Vents, reminded us about 13,000 times before the movie started that they were perfectly capable of showing exciting live shows live, as it happens etc. But as John Paul Jones remarked, five years is quite a short time for Zeppelin to get anything together, so I suppose we're lucky.

No one else had dressed up for the event, sadly, and the cinema was evidently under some ordinance that the audience must be allowed to hear a pin drop during the loudest musical passages for some unknown reasons probably to do with fire or safety or food anti-defamation laws or zombie awareness. The audience protested loudly several times and eventually, rather grudgingly, the sound was improved slightly. By the end, peak sound levels were hitting 89 dB, or about one hundredth as loud as Led Zeppelin actually were live. That just about covered the sound of popcorn, shoes creaking etc. and so I guess it had to do.

The show itself is surprisingly exciting. They are all old, now, of course, and there's no disguising that. Even Jason Bonham, the son of the original drummer John, is getting up there in his Gen-Xy way. But there's no denying the fluidity and mastery of their material that characterized them back then, and hasn't changed a bit. Mind you, since modern bands are unbelievably wimpy and amateur in comparison with any kind of actual rock music, Zeppelin now appear to be far harder and far more technically accomplished than they even seemed in their heyday, which is saying a lot. Back in the day, people spoke of power & control, light & shade, and in today's terms I think they actually display complete subjugation and #000000 & #FFFFFF.

And jazzy. It's perfectly possible that my completely untrained rock mind thinks of  "any jam including one or more unusual chords" as "Jazz" - but I don't think so. I think the classic rock bands instinctively move into jazz when jamming. (I hear it in Black Sabbath, for instance, though Deep Purple tend to jam in classical mode instead.) You don't hear Jack White or Skrillex or Deadmau5 or Ke$ha or Maroon 5 suddenly dropping into an extended proggy bit with jazz overtones, but Zeppelin do.

Plantations - the Robert Plant rambles between songs - haven't changed much either. Robert introduces Trampled Underfoot as a Robert Johnson-influenced song, but puts a different date on Robert Johnson's song when he mentions it before the song and when he mentions it after. (1935 or 1936, take your pick.) And he introduces Nobody's Fault But Mine by mentioning the time they (Zeppelin) saw Blind Willie Johnson, at a church in Mississippi back in 1932.

John Paul Jones, of course, regularly plays with hard rock bands - I saw him with Them Crooked vultures a couple of years ago. Don't know what Jason Bonham does, but I assume he's been in practice more recently than Led Zeppelin, and Robert Plant plays Zeppelin songs with all and sundry (though more often with sundry) and gigs regularly. The only retiree in the band is Jimmy Page. He played superbly for a hermit, and was quite his young self all the way through. You'd expect some sort of rustiness, but there was none. A couple of major clangers, yes, but that's rock and roll. Or Jazz. Certainly didn't detract from the overall performance.

Which was fun. All four looked like they were enjoying themselves, which is a good start, and when the sound was turned up beyond the low grumble level, we were enjoying ourselves too. I'll be buying the DVD, but of course nothing matches the big screen for delivering presence.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I won't be able to thank you fully for the articles on your web-site. I know you'd put a lot of time and energy into all of them and hope you know how much I appreciate it. I hope I could do the same for someone else sometime.

Bruv said...

Hi Sis

What is the new back ground to your blog. It looks like a close up of skin of some sort?

Bruv

Lyle Hopwood said...

It's just one of the standard backgrounds. I hope it isn't skin...I think it might be marble.

Unknown said...

Hi Lyle, I'm sorry to bother you here. Searching on Internet I find your interesting blog. I'm translating into Italian the documentary on the Celebration Day. And I don't really understand what Robert Plant means when he says: "And Blind Willy Johnson was just ...just before he had his first shot." Why shot? Blind Willy Johnson was killed? It refers to the first record? Please please please, help me... elisa

Lyle Hopwood said...

Hello Elise,

I don't know! Robert Plant often talks in half-sentences or his thoughts trail off before he finishes expressing the thought. I looked up the "Plantations" website and you've transcribed what he says correctly (http://www.rambleonzep.com/dates/trans/2007-12-10faloMatrixSchoepsMaia.htm). I don't believe BWJ was ever shot with a gun. "First shot" can also mean a "first attempt" at greatness, or fame, or even just singing in public but 1932 doesn't quite fit the dates on Wikipedia. "First shot" can also mean "first measure of liquor" (e.g. first drink of the day) which doesn't quite fit either! I will ask around if anyone has a better theory. Please check back later!

Lyle Hopwood said...

Hi Elisa,

I wrote to someone familiar with "Plantations" and they said he almost certainly meant "drink" when he said "shot".

I'm personally not sure whether he meant "drink" or "attempt" but drink certainly fits. Good luck with your translation!

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