Posted by
Rick Sunderland on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 6:09:22 AM
http://www.nme.com/news/led-zeppelin/33079
This hasn’t been at the top of my mind, but I was getting into a car with my girlfriend today, realized what day and time it was, and exclaimed “My God, Led Zeppelin is on stage right now! The first full show since the eighties is going on as we speak!”
Led Zeppelin is not only the most maligned superband, but also perhaps the best. Only the Beatles have sold more albums in the U.S., and you’d be hard pressed to name any other group with anywhere near the same influence on music in general. Not just on the wailing hair bands mind you. Everyone from Nashville crooners to Hip – Hop sampler mavens praise their enduring genius. Zep is one of the few artists/bands – you could probably count them on your fingers – that without in some way quoting is nearly impossible to play or even market modern popular music. Before Zeppelin, record companies and concert promoters made far more money than the artists themselves. Zeppelin and their manager, Peter Grant, changed all that.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10962851/zep_eternal_why_is_led_zeppelin_still_popular
So here they are again, and I’m rooting for them. If this, as the official version reads, is merely a one off show to honor the memory of an old friend that incidentally was a major player in all that history, then good for them. If there’s a concert recording that comes out of this, as one may reasonably assume since they reportedly came into this loaded for bear and played substantially longer than requested, all the better. I’ll be among the first to buy one and wish them well for whatever lives they choose from here on out. But as nice as another live DVD would be, Led Zeppelin owes history, or its’ fans for that matter, nothing more at this point.
If the desire is there however, and they can set aside all the water that inevitably goes under the bridge, and the old magic returns, something very rare and special could happen. Sure, seeing as I was still on the sunny side of eleven when they last played live in the U.S., I’d love to see a tour. I’d happily pay a sum with a comma in it for really good seats. But the thousand pound gorilla in the room, and possibly what Robert Plant was referring to in this month’s issue of Rolling Stone when he said that he doesn’t want the Zep reunion to turn into a “big deal” is this: the certain hopes and expectations associated with any new album. We’d expect it to be good; maybe very good indeed. There’s pressure enough for the band in that. But Zeppelin may be alone amongst the “grandpa bands” in the potential to produce a document worthy of a group of living legends. Something that could stop all the young whippersnappers in their tracks to say, “Wow … someday I hope to come up with something like that.”
Rock and Roll has always been an instrument by and for youth. It does not, by it’s very nature, have “old masters” in quite the same sense as any other art form. The heroes of Rock die young, as did Hendrix, fail to evolve like AC/DC, or go soft and mushy like Rod Stewart. Clapton is pretty much a bluesman these days, and the Eagles seem content to play it safe. At worst they become parodies of past greatness, such as the Stones. But we don’t see any rock Michaelangelos designing domes and painting frescoes of any lasting value at an advanced age. You don’t see them dancing around - and past – sixty years old talking about how they’re determined to make this coming one-off benefit show an example of their best work. Win, lose or draw, Zep never got soft, let the moss grow, or just played it safe at any point. If they have any of those inclinations now the smart play would be just to sail away into already well earned immortality without any needless new album boat rocking.
Personally though, I’d like to see them take the high road of risk for no other reason than as a shining example of how even in the most youth obsessed segment of our youth obsessed culture you don’t have to become a dinosaur. Show us some smart, finesse-full music that really rocks! Let’s hear some new music of real value in a day when the kids are tuning in to “Classic Rock” because there’s so little else on the radio worth listening to. I’d like to see the comeback of a band that the fans never really allowed to fade away, see them be the Biggest Band In The World once again. Let me chuckle to see the kids bleaching their hair white to be like Jimmy Page, and realizing that “old” and “cool” are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
As a forty-something guitar slinger myself, I’d like that.