Like a Lead Zeppelin

"Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same (Two Disc Special Edition)" (WARNER HOME VIDEO)

"Led Zeppelin" (Dick Carruthers)

"Led Zeppelin: 1968-1980" (Keith Shadwick, Led Zeppelin)

I was lucky as a youth: there were no DVDs of Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden, so no extended camera shots of Robert Plant making Rock God pouts™ with his chest exposed, nor of Jimmy Page slagging off the heroin blues. I only saw the somewhat tired, end-of-a-long-tour document, with its moments of grandeur, called The Song Remains the Same as a midnight show in college (UT) when my eyes were practically slits from the effects of various inebriates. In other words, all I heard was the music, and it rocked. And it lead me to Blind Willie Johnson, Chess Records (Swan Song definitely should have purchased Chess Records when it was on the market) and other Delta Mississippi blues masters, as well as Sandy Denny's Fairport Convention (and subsequently Richard Thompson), so I'll always be grateful.

I've been zipping through Keith Sadwick's intriguing biography of Led Zeppelin which gives short shrift to the drugs, groupies, hotel wrecking, and John Bonham punching-women-in-the-face stories (though, they are often mentioned in passing), and concentrates nearly exclusively on the music. Of course, this leads me to listen to the albums again, with fresh ears. If you are like me, and have listened to Led Zeppelin on (and off) for a long, long time, take a second listen to the music on the DVD recently released of their live show. When on their game (and not falling down drunk or high), Led Zeppelin were in sync to each other as tightly as any jazz quartet, as apt to remain locked into the groove as any James Brown funk band. Amazingly tight actually: Jones and Bonham made the band into something special. Plant's lyrics are, to be kind, mostly disposable, and Page was no Jimi Hendrix. Yet the band's creation is rocking enough to sustain ten thousand replays. Watch them smile at one another, as they launch into something else.

Led Zeppelin's last good album was Presence, a heroin-influenced shimmering slice of rock-star life (Achilles Last Stand being of course reference to Robert Plant's near-fatal auto accident which permanently lamed him - again, watch as Plant sings the song to Page). Page was too fucked up to participate on the ode to anal sex, In Through The Out Door, and his limpness shows, there are only a handful of songs on that album worthy of replay.

I don't know if Page ever has shown up since actually, Coda is pretty good, but the band was over, Bonham was dead, and subsequent albums are just remixing and/or re-releasing of old materials - nothing new. Not that they aren't worth listening to (How The West Was Won is excellent, and the DVD of live Zeppelin is as well), but Jimmy Page isn't making any end-of-year lists in 2007.