By: Kevin Shirley
Photo By: Troy Germano (Unless Otherwise Noted)
Led Zeppelin. Monday, December 10, 2007. London’s O2 Arena. I went to be critical. I’m just that way. I don’t enjoy live gigs as a rule, much preferring the sound of records, so I came with arms folded across my chest, just the type of audience musicians hate. But, Led Zeppelin lived up to the hype. They are still the world’s greatest rock act.
The one thing that struck me, which I know but was strongly reinforced, is the wonderfully tactile nature of musical instruments and how it’s the players that make all the difference. In a world of computer generated music and digital perfection, nothing compares to fingers on strings, hands and feet playing drums and keys. The results are just as signature as a voice. But first, a little background before the details of the show.
During the pollen-laced Spring of 2007, while working on the DVD revamp of the iconic Led Zeppelin movie, The Song Remains The Same, I heard the first grumblings of a revamping of the band and a possible live show.
While I labored away over lip-reading and syncing the Golden God’s voice to immovable picture, matching the flashing and nimble guitar fingerings of the skinny dragon-clad guitar hero to the strobing frames, and the snappy snare beats and heroic drum fills accommodating walking bass lines to a wavering QuickTime of the poorly edited feature film in an upstairs studio, all three remaining members of the band could be seen talking, huddled over coffees and seated at the café of London’s Metropolis Studios.
Jimmy Page, now having accepted the greying of his locks, seemed to preside over the proceedings. Robert Plant, still preening-proud and lionesque, the years only showing in the lines of his jowls, appeared to be feisty, ferociously holding his own, and Jonesy, trim and athletic in high-waisted jeans, looked bemused and a little ambivalent as all three were deep in secretive conversation over a number of things, the new DVD, downloads, management, Mothership
In the summer of 1980, just out of my teens, I traveled to Europe from South Africa with only a little money, as just a week before I had splurged my travel savings on a vinyl set of all the Led Zeppelin records. I loved the sleeves, the revealing and tantalizing tenement windows on Physical Graffiti
I went back to South Africa, having decided what I wanted to do with my life, and have written “Record Producer” in my Immigration and Landing Cards ever since. My career has been very varied, busy and successful. From Aerosmith to the Black Crowes and then Jimmy Page, the road led to the steps of the Cathedral of Led Zeppelin. And in I went, to assemble and mix How The West Was Won
So, when the O2 show was announced, with my long-suffering wife’s blessing, I booked the 11-hour coach flight from Los Angeles to London and hotel accommodations. Costly, but I felt I needed to be there.
“Led Zeppelin Concert and After-Party Wrist Bands. Cameraphone photo by Marcus Bird.”
Sleep didn’t come easy. I’m anxious and it’s not caffeine.
I get an email from legendary filmmaker Cameron Crowe. He writes that he’s unable to be at the Led Zeppelin concert tonight, but says: “Word is already in that the sound check was thrilling. Please write about this on your blog, brother. And bravo again on your genius work on the music. Everybody’s flippin’.”
It’s 8.25 a.m. Jimmy Page’s assistant has just called and said, “You have tickets and passes as I’ve told you all along. You have tickets and passes, including to the party with the band afterwards, which will be horrendous as there are about 700 people going in a room that holds about 200, but it is what it is.” So, it seems I am going. He says the sound check was amazing and Jimmy is in a great space.
I’m relieved. Now I’m going to lie down and see if I can finally get some sleep.
I wait all day for information on where my tickets are, and it’s late in the day when I find I need to go to the O2 box office to pick them up. At the box office there’s no special treatment for me. I feel a bit precious, but realize I’m being a big baby. It’s very cold outside.
The O2 is a nice venue. Inside, bars and restaurants of all qualities and types surround the auditorium, and there are benches, bookstores, even trees inside. It reminds me of Las Vegas, being in Caesar’s Palace or the Paris hotel. It’s cold inside too. I quite like that.
They come out blazing with “Good Times, Bad Times.” The simple stage yields up guitarist Jimmy Page. Who is that gaucho, amigo? Page looks regal and stately with his shoulder-length grey hair, well presented, with his vintage Gibson Les Paul slung over a stylish long black coat, black pants, waistcoat and a crisp white shirt. He’s on the right and immediately that guitar tone shocks me at how recognizable it is.
Not the notes, the fact that when he plays them, they sound different from everybody else. I’ve been working with him since about ’99, or whenever it was that I recorded him playing with the Black Crowes for the Live at the Greek
I loved that gig, but his playing then was not in the same league as the gentleman I see tonight. Unfortunately though, the early songs are almost destroyed by awful sound. In fact, the first couple of songs are barely recognizable for the poor sound, at least from where I’m sitting on the ground floor toward the back.
Then “Ramble On.” The signature bass line is inaudible. The vocals are buried in the soup but Jimmy’s solo is there, in time, in place. As the familiar entry of the third song trumpets from the stage, the sound engineer begins to find his fingers. Singer Robert Plant, looking tall and lean in boots and jeans, belts out “Hey, hey mama, said the way you move,” deep from his lion’s chest, introducing the bombastic riff fest that is the iconic “Black Dog.”
Jimmy digs deep into the riff, then picks up the harmony and laces it onto the root riff that Jonesy is laying down on the bass guitar. Drummer Jason Bonham picks up his late dad’s famous fills and straight-time feel that has become synonymous with Led Zeppelin, and it’s fantastic. The audience howls back the “ah ah ah ah” wave grandly, the years falling off the executive audience like a stock crash on Wall Street.
Zeppelin’s borrowed blues track from the deepest South is next as Jimmy pulls out the finger slide and slithers into “In My Time of Dying.” It’s amazing. Jason nails all the fills. Robert never puts a note wrong and no squeaks are in evidence, unlike some of the performances from over 30 years ago. He is helped by the general tuning down of the entire set, and I think he could have pushed it up a full step and stretched his voice to more effect, but in general he is exemplary.
I haven’t mentioned bassist John Paul Jones yet. That’s because Jonesy has been absolutely perfect thus far. Unfortunately, both his temperament and his place in the band don’t offer much space to shine next to the massive comic-book auras of Robert and Jimmy, and even (I hate to add) of Jason, who is looking fit and trim and like a bare-headed wrestler. Kind of like Mr. Clean in sunglasses. I wouldn’t mess with him.
Then we are introduced to a new performed-live Zeppelin track, “For Your Life,” a track from my favourite Zeppelin album (Presence). It’s even better live as the space in the song makes it sound as wide as the Grand Canyon. Jimmy is just beginning to feel really comfortable on stage, and the guitar is singing, shining, yelling – dahhhh dah – dum dada dahhhhh dah. The enormous screen behind the entire back of the stage lights up bright white for the first time.
Next up is “Trampled Underfoot,” and time for Jonesy to dig into the keys and bounce the familiar pocket that sets the pace for the song. Perhaps a touch quick, but lively, and again Jimmy’s solo is spot on. The set’s energy has dipped a little, but not a single fat, grey, bearded fan has sat down.
“Nobody’s Fault But Mine” is good. Not mind-blowing, like the version from Knebworth on the DVD, but good. Solid.
“No Quarter,” you can’t take this away from Jonesy. It’s great. Amazing. He’s playing the keys with such grace, fluidity, pure class. A musician’s musician, he seems content to be a maestro in this gang of freakish talent. Robert is again perfect as he croons through the opening verse, throwing up his hands to accompany the effect of the delays on his voice.
The song is sublime and when the guitar takes up the wah-wah riff, it’s effortless. I haven’t seen Jimmy play the guitar since the Crowes shows, and he is stunningly together. Timing, sensitivity, placement, he is a star supporting the piece and then he backs out as Jonesy takes a slow keyboard solo, dry-ice mist swirling around the stage. Jimmy enters for his accompanying solo, like a demon on the moors at midnight and is again totally amazing.
The sonic wave in his hands reaches deep into me, like a hand in my chest. Unfortunately, the awful sound presentation of the drum belies Jason’s feel, and he’s presented as bombastic when it’s quite a graceful piece, really. I enjoyed it, but I’m here to call it as I see it, and that’s how I see it.
“Since I’ve Been Loving You,” Jimmy is tentative in the intro. I think it has been threatening him, and he approaches it very cautiously, perhaps too cautiously, but he settles in once the intro is confined to history. It’s good, the song’s dynamics could have been greater, and Jimmy’s guitar solo is also tentative, but it feels solid with Jonesy’s foundation of the swirling organ beneath it. The final verse is where they finally grab the song by the neck and wring it furiously, ramping it up until the dying riffs and it ends orgasmically.
“Dazed And Confused,” oh my God. John Paul Jones walks into a bar, slowly, they turn. It’s sensational. Jimmy’s guitar is thick on top of the walking bass, and bending, twisting some wicked sonics and sounds, that really only he can do. He’s got the bends and the deep brown sound laces through the air like thick smoke, only controlled. All too soon, we’re into the solo, which is too short. It doesn’t need to be 20 minutes, but it’s way too good to be contained to five, and it felt a little bottled up.
Then, as the band folds into the darkness, Jimmy grabs a violin bow from atop his Orange amplifier. The old and well-greased audience gasps and lets it out, and I’m waiting, is this Spinal Tap? No, no, no! Not Amy Winehouse no, just no. This is the Guitar God I grew up worshiping and he is brilliant. As the Penderecki-esque shimmerings and slithered chordings reverberate around the O2 arena, I’m struck by the majesty of this composition. It is otherworldly and ethereal and by the time Jimmy thumps the chords and points the bow heavenward with the delays, the experience is complete. This is Led Zeppelin, as good, if not better than they’ve ever been.
After that, there is only one thing you can play, and the familiar, yet somehow strange pickings of “Stairway To Heaven” throw me for a loop. For the first time, I’m blatantly aware of the de-tuning, obviously to accommodate Robert’s changed singing style and age. I don’t like it. Jason is good, he doesn’t feel as bombastic, and Jonesy is good. But, it doesn’t feel right to me.
Jimmy is picking out the notes so well, and as the 12-string fanfare heralds in the most famous guitar solo ever, Jimmy doesn’t disappoint. He’s on the money, so good. What a solo, I think there’s a tear in my eye. Robert is amazing.
Jimmy keeps the trademark red Gibson double-neck guitar around his shoulders and bends into the opening salvo of “The Song Remains The Same.” His picking is clean and ferocious, and the precision stuns me, it’s the same caliber of playing as the version from the movie and 35 years on, sounds as fresh as today.
As the long ending chord holds the applause at bay for just a hint, Robert introduces Jason who sings the opening line of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” before the band lunge into “Misty Mountain Hop.” The overall sound quality has never really become good, and if only the damned snare drum sounded better and fit into the sound, it could have sounded great. It’s too busy a song to be peppered by non-stop shotgun flashes, and I was pleased to get to the end of it.
But, I wasn’t prepared for what came next, “Kashmir.” Majestic, plodding (in a good way), I feel transported. The desert winds, the sun, Robert, the Lion of the Desert. Jason settles in quickly, and I think his dad joined his old compatriots four bars in, after a slightly clumsy opening, and inhabited his beloved son’s body.
Jason is elevated from his earthly seat and sinks deep into the groove. Jimmy doesn’t miss a lick and Jonesy sticks it all together with a big monstrous glue. It’s wrong to single out the individuals actually, because this piece is the band as one, and there has been no better, ever.
“Kashmir.” The most exhilarating musical moment of my life. I am hallucinating. I am in that desert. Wandering.
And then the lights. Rapturous applause from this adult audience who were all 18 again. The band bows that famous bow. All linking, Jimmy smiling, Robert’s Colonel Sanders beard catching some of the light. Then they disappear. Everyone knows there’s an encore coming, and the audience holds station, clapping, yelling, whistling, and talking to their “+1s.”
“Whole Lotta Love,” it’s good and it’s time for the theramin solo. Three green lasers make the first Spinal Tap moment for me, as Jimmy stands in a triangle of green light, looking like an image from a 1980 Apple computer. Guitar hero meets Pong. I think the light designer might have been away for this one. It cheapens it a little. I may be tired.
Lights up, another bow. I think it’s the end and head for the exit. I’m not alone. As I pass through the doors, the machine gun intro of “Rock And Roll” echoes off the walls and without hesitation I duck back into the auditorium and grab someone else’s vacated standing room. The audience is still up to answer the “Lonely, lonely, lonely” at full voice. Then they’re gone again, and I’m into the night.
Well, not quite into the night. Outside the doors I meet Def Leppard vocalist Joe Elliot. We chat he loves my work, apparently. I’m flattered. I talk to Rosanna Arquette, we live in the same town and I’ve seen her walking around Malibu. Juliette Lewis is there. Then it’s off to the after-party.
Apparently, the band will show, I don’t believe it, but it’s fun to have a drink with Joe Elliot, who’s just had a brush with Jeff Beck. Many people come and say hello and compliment my work. I see Jason [Bonham] and go over to him. He’s genuinely thrilled to see me and it’s a great interaction. We chat for about ten minutes before I leave him with the tugging, nagging attention seekers.
I hear Jimmy and Jonesy made an appearance but I didn’t see them. Black Crowes’ drummer Steve Gorman and his quite lovely wife come over, I’m thrilled to see them. It’s been awhile and I have a great relationship with them. Steve tells me Chris Robinson listens to How The West Was Won constantly on the bus. I am pleased to hear that. I liked Chris a lot, back in the day.
Lou from Gibson is there, the lads from Soulphood, Vince from Getty. A lot of Americans have flown over for this gig. It must have cost everyone about $6,000 to see the show. London is so expensive, and everything adds up. The taxi to the venue is about £50, over $100 – each way. I bought a program and a T-shirt (which I’ll never wear).
The evening is wearing down, it’s nearly 2:30 a.m. I see Ross Halfin as I’m leaving. He was shooting the show and says he had a good night. The line for taxis is a mile long, and there aren’t many cabs. I tell Troy, who’s panicking, just to follow me.
We walk to the road and hail a luxury Mercedes that takes us back to our hotel for £40, where we closed the bar with a club sandwich and a Coke before parting and I hit the white crisp sheets with my ears ringing. This could be heaven.
Encores:
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Ignited We Stand (13 years ago)
How would I have loved to have been at that show. Regardless of any sound problems or what have you, it must have been nice to witness such an event. I’m scared I will never get to see them live. Here’s to keeping the hope alive.