Led Zeppelin DVD

[Basvarken]

As much as I love Led Zeppelin studio albums I've always found them very sloppy at live recordings that I've heard/seen.

Now, five year after the O2 concert they're finally releasing the DVD of that reunion gig.

They've doctored it to death...
 
And still they sound sloppy!   


The timing is way off more than once. Page and Jones don't seem to have the main riff down pat.
Plant is fighting his way through the song.
This YouTube video is supposed to be a teaser for the DVD. But all it did was convince me I don't need to buy the DVD.
Thank you.





Okay Uwe, you can finish it off now. 

[gweimer]

As long as Jones/Bonham were/are tight, I can live with Page's sloppiness.  I have the BBC Sessions CD, and I like it quite a bit.  It was more the improv and openness of the songs that I liked about them like.  I seem to recall a moment (and I only watched a short few minutes) in The Song Remains The Same, where Jones and Bonham definitely slid off the rails.

At least they named this DVD after my favorite Zep tune.   

[gearHed289]

My my my, I'm so happy... 

Got it on pre-order. Waiting patiently. Gonna have a viewing party with a couple of drummer friends (I have a lot of those...). Can't wait to watch it with my daughter!

[uwe]

No, I won't (finish them off). Zep are Zep are Zep. People like them because of the ethereal hippie bullshit in their music which supposedly means something deep, they are not even a heavy rock band, just one with a couple of heavy rock tracks.

If tightness of live performance was of relevance to the larger public, then Foghat and Status Quo would have outsold Zep long ago. They didn't so the public gets the Zep it deserves.

I'll even buy the CD (not the DVD, I find Robert Plant aloof and sour-faced as a frontman) because I like it that he now sings some songs in a deeper register.That is another thing that always bugged me about this runaway Yardbirds outfit: I could never understand Plant's lyrics underneath his banshee wail and where I did, I couldn't understand what it was supposed to mean unless it was lemon juice dripping down his legs, that was a socially aware statement that resonated with me even though I had sex with oranges (hey, I was young, 13, and read about it in Playboy magazine!) not lemons. Orange acid bites quite enough, vielen dank, Robert Plant had obviously no idea what he was singing about. 

Enough of this, I'm seeing a Deep Purple concert at Festhalle tomorrow - let's not taint this anointed experience-to-be even further ...

Zep who?  

Seriously: I wish all Zep fans a nice nostalgic warm gut feeling listening to this/seeing it.

Uwe

[gweimer]

No, I won't (finish them off). Zep are Zep are Zep. People like them because of the ethereal hippie bullshit in their music which supposedly means something deep, they are not even a heavy rock band, just one with a couple of heavy rock tracks.

If tightness of live performance was of relevance to the larger public, then Foghat and Status Quo would have outsold Zep long ago. They didn't so the public gets the Zep it deserves.

I'll even buy the CD (not the DVD, I find Robert Plant aloof and sour-faced as a frontman) because I like it that he now sings some songs in a deeper register.That is another thing that always bugged me about this runaway Yardbirds outfit: I could never understand Plant's lyrics underneath his banshee wail and where I did, I couldn't understand what it was supposed to mean unless it was lemon juice dripping down his legs, that was a socially aware statement that resonated with me even though I had sex with oranges (hey, I was young, 13, and read about it in Playboy magazine!) not lemons. Orange acid bites quite enough, vielen dank, Robert Plant had obviously no idea what he was singing about. 

Enough of this, I'm seeing a Deep Purple concert at Festhalle tomorrow - let's not taint this anointed experience-to-be even further ...

Zep who?  

Seriously: I wish all Zep fans a nice nostalgic warm gut feeling listening to this/seeing it.

Uwe

I think I soiled myself....

The thing about Zep was that they never boxed themselves into a predictable style.  Not many bands could do the range of material they had, from bastardized blues, to country (Hot Dog), to more progressive sounds (Kashmir, Achilles Last Stand), and folk (Battle of Evermore).  What always appealed to me was the sound, and the 101 layers of guitar that Page managed as producer.

[uwe]

"What always appealed to me was the sound, and the 101 layers of guitar that Page managed as producer."

Apart from Bonham's hamfisted, non-swinging drumming, the sound of Led Zep albums is what always bugged me most! Unfocused, everything everywhere, no "less is more"-concept except on a few underproduced jammy tracks, JPJ hard to single out, keyboards not really overt in what they play, multitudes of guitar tracks orchestral, yes, but not really discernible from another.

I realize while I'm writing this that I'm basically criticizing Led Zep for not sounding like DP did on Machine Head!   That is not fair. Obviously, that hazy, indistinct and often billowing  sound had its fans. I find that they had a studio sound that made it hard (for me) to single out the individual components and latch onto something, but realize at the same time that that might be exactly what many people like about them. With DP it was always crystal-clear what each instrument was doing and why, the production hid nothing and added only very little to the natural sound of the instruments. Which is why DP sounded hardly different live than on their studio albums (even though they improvised live a lot, possibly more than Led Zep, the overall band sound wasn't too different from the studio) and why Whole Lotta Love is barely recognizable on TSRTS. The Purple sound was simple, even banal, just played very well. Zep, otoh, built those grand hazy sound landscapes that remind me of the Wizard of Oz machine: Once you get closer, there really isn't too much there!

Sound appeal habbits tend to stick: I'm sure my penchant for JP has to do with the fact that production- and writing-wise they were closer in sound and composition to DP and Black Sabbath (that drummer could swing!) than to LZ. And I found a lot of bands that replicated the LZ sound more or less successfully like Rush (in their early days), Paris, Detective and of course Kingdom Come hard going to really get to like.

But, my dear Zeppelinos, do remember laughter and let Uwe just ramble on while you enjoy the DVD and CD! They have written rock history, nobody can take that away from them, and they were hugely influential too.

Rob, why don't you give the new Golden Earring a try instead? That is nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8H4K6L5v6I&feature=relmfu

[gweimer]

Sooooooo......what you're saying is that the material wasn't able to stand up by itself without the added layers.   

Dare I even whisper under baited breath that I have never liked "Smoke On The Water" despite loving DP?

[Highlander]

Oooo... the gloves... are... off...! 

[uwe]

That's ok. I like the riff (and the way the instruments enter one by one at the start of the song), the verse is nothing to write home about. Ze Purps never thought much of it themselves. WB released it as a single against their will. It was a hastily written song in the aftermath of the casino fire. Initially, they weren't even sure whether it should enter their live set.

Blackmore himself has admitted that his penchant of playing riffs with fourths or fifths rather than single notes came from watching Oscar Peterson do that to make his piano riffs "sound nastier" - it left a lasting impression on Blackers.

Purple for me is more a song like Sail Away, it encapsulates their influences and strengths:



And one other thing I always liked about them: You could understand their lyrics well! Plant's histrionics and mannered phrasing makes understanding his lyrics difficult for a non-native speaker like me, he never had clarity like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvviInCUW8o&feature=related

Re your question: Now that you mention it, no, I do not think that Led Zep were the greatest or even decent camp fire songwriters. A lot of their stuff was esoteric rather than catchy. Kashmir lives from the drama not from a stripped down approach. One thing you can say for them: They were never obvious hit merchants. But they were daring in tackling outside influences and their convoluted riffs had a charm. But, no, their material needed the big production and the extra instrumental layers and they had issues reproducing it live which Purple never had. Whole Lotta Love, for instance, is not really reproducable live. I've never heard either a Zep version or a version by another band that even came close.

Well, the talented girls of Blonde on Blonde at least made a valiant effort emphasizing the finer nuances of this harmonically complex Page/Plant composition:

[uwe]

Oooo... the gloves... are... off...!  

No, they're not! I enjoy discussing Led Zep because their popularity eludes me, they are an interesting phenomenon or maybe I'm just weird.

[gweimer]

No, they're not! I enjoy discussing Led Zep because their popularity eludes me, they are an interesting phenomenon or may I'm just weird.

When they first hit, I was in college.  All the Dead heads and hippies hated them.  One of my Frat brothers threw LZ II out the second story window of the house like a frisbee.

Maybe this version is more to your liking.   

[Aussie Mark]

Here's a good Zep cover ....




Uwe's edit: Best live clip from Angel I've seen sofar. Where is Giuffria though?

[Dave W]

 

[uwe]

When they first hit, I was in college.  All the Dead heads and hippies hated them.  One of my Frat brothers threw LZ II out the second story window of the house like a frisbee.

Maybe this version is more to your liking.  

Sure I like it better, it has harmonies!

What Dave posted I like too, big band arrangements wirk with a lot of Purple stuff too.

[godofthunder]

 Never my cuppa even though we almost became a Zep tribute! I ditched the Jazz Bass as soon as I saw a opening  I'd rather play Smoke On The Water any day.

No, they're not! I enjoy discussing Led Zep because their popularity eludes me, they are an interesting phenomenon or may I'm just weird.