I'll never forget the first time I heard Led Zeppelin, but I won't bore you with that. Because all day, Dec. 11, 2007, in a dark time for our culture and on a gorgeous fall day, I'm getting emails from my pals who are just thrilled that Led Zeppelin played a full concert in London last night, their first concert since 1980.
What is thrilling me about this day, and about all the email, is that the fire is still there. Not in Zeppelin - anyone who's heard Page and Plant's occasional projects, together and separately, know that these two haven't lost a step, and may even be better than they were in the '70s - but in my friends. Goddamn, we still have the fire! We love rock 'n' roll music, we always have, and it is clear that we always will. Music was my first love, and always will be. Our lives were built around it; our friendships, too; even my career, and those of some of my friends.And that we didn't get to see yesterday's show only underlines this. I remember when bands were mysterious, where the sound came from far away (and over the hills) and sounded like it. Rock 'n' roll wasn't much on TV, and certainly Led Zeppelin wasn't. There was no My Space page for every musician you'd never heard of, and no live concert DVDs after one hit single, and no "Behind the Music" episodes or top-notch biopics. There was just this fuckin' crazy wild exotic music. I was 12 when LZ I came out, and 13 when LZ II came out a mere eight months later, and I was absolutely floored. I still am.
Led Zeppelin was the "new Beatles" when everyone was looking for someone who SOUNDED like the Beatles. Zeppelin MEANT it like the Beatles, Zeppelin aimed that high, as U2 would do a decade later. So what if they didn't sound like the Beatles? Abbey Road came out as Zeppelin was ascendant, and they busted the whole thing wide open. Again, in a way roughly analogous to the Fabs.And now, with this concert in London - and please God, a tour - it is becoming apparent to all that Zeppelin was bigger than anyone thought at the time, even as they were filling stadiums. And not just because some guy paid $168,000 for two tickets, though that certainly qualifies as putting your money where your mouth is. It is apparent because you can just tell, from the pictures, from the freakin' SET LIST, how great this band is. Still. Even without Bonham the Elder.
Ah, the set list. My friend Jeff sent it out first thing - he's still a maniac about this stuff, too - and just reading it gave me chills. I immediately made an iTunes playlist out of the set, and it's blasting now. And I am reborn in my faith in the music of my youth. Not that I ever lost that faith. But you don't want these guys to fail. It would feel like my own failure. That's how closely we identify with these guys. We always will.
“Good Times, Bad Times”
“Ramble On”
“Black Dog”
“In My Time of Dying”
“For Your Life”
“Trampled Under Foot”
“Nobody’s Fault But Mine”
“No Quarter”
“Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You”
“Dazed and Confused”
“Stairway To Heaven”
“The Song Remains the Same”
“Misty Mountain Hop”
“Kashmir”
Encore:
“Whole Lotta Love”
“Rock and Roll”
But David Fricke of Rolling Stone was there, and he posted about it on the magazine's website, because he knew that we had to know NOW how it was. There will no doubt be a DVD, an album, etc. And we will buy it. But right NOW is the magic. Knowing that it was there, and we weren't, which is a delicious torture like I felt in 1969, missing something huge, something on fire, and caring so fucking passionately about it. About classic '70s rock 'n' roll.
Like I always have. And always will.
This is the official launch of NoisyArtifacts.blogspot.com. I have been planning to start this "website" for about 10 years, and I always stopped. It's so big, I know so much, and I care so much about it, I couldn't start. I have been looking for a place to start, and this isn't as good as any, this is BETTER than any. Because this show is a concrete demonstration of how much MANY of us care. We don't care if other people think it's nostalgia or retro or just classic rock again. It's not that I don't care about contemporary music - I love Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, The Shins, The Mars Volta, Nickel Creek, Basement Jaxx - but this music speaks, to me, to my friends, to millions of people I've never met, and to their offspring, who recognize something in Zeppelin that they don't hear in contemporary bands. A wildness, and solidity, a virtuosity and a rootedness that, despite all the money involved, still feels pure. And dirty. And feral. And heavenly.
Rock 'n' roll. A noisy artifact from my youth, but no longer just an artifact, and me no longer feeling quite so not-youthful.
I could ramble on for quite a bit more, but they tell me that brevity is the soul of the internet. OK. But there will be more in this space, and I want to hear from my brothers (and sisters) who grew up with this fine shit and want to keep it going, keep loving it, keep reveling in it. Because that's what we do.
6 comments:
Thanks, Dave.
As I told you earlier, accounts of the Zeppelin concert brought tears to my eyes. I was immediately embarrassed--a grown man crying about a rock band. But Zeppelin DOES mean SO much to me. Aside from their incredible catalog of music, Zep was central to several formative experiences in my life. My older brother introduced me to Zep when I was 13. This gesture represented an end to the antagonism of our childhood. He bestowed upon me the things he loved most: Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin.
In 1977, my brother took me to my first concert: Led Zeppelin at the Oakland Coliseum. We drove down the night before and slept in a parking lot near the coliseum. More specifically, my brother and his lady friend slept inside my mom's VW bus, and I slept underneath it. Seriously. Inside the coliseum, I remember seeing unusual people and smelling the strange aroma of weed. Derringer kicked ass. I remember being awed by the presence of Zep, but I was disappointed that their songs didn't sound like their albums. How naive I was.
After that, I had no choice but to start playing electric guitar.
The first song I learned was Black Dog, and my high school bands fed heavily on Zeppelin tunes (even No Quarter, which I sang!). I still have a cassette recording of my first band playing Rock and Roll: vocals, drums, THREE guitar players, and no bassist. We won the talent competition at McClatchy High in 1978, playing Rock and Roll and Cat Scratch Fever. Of course I played a low-slung Les Paul. I had a Gibson double neck SG later on...
Remember the Midnight Movies at the Town Theater? We must have seen The Song Remains the Same almost 10 times.
I could go on and on. Led Zeppelin is my classical music. I am SO happy that they played again, and even happier that they played well.
Hugh
Wow Dave this blog is super tight....you have made this pop whore jealous...just kiddin'...good job dude!
I have an audience recording of this if anyone would like it. Sounds great!
Funny how we can share the same faith but differ on who the true prophets are. I never carried much for Zep, probably because where I grew up it was favored by indiscriminate metalheads whose lack of appreciation for Memphis soul meant I didn't want to be associate with them. But the band did provide me with one great generation-gap moment. It's 1972, and I'm in the car with my mom when the long version of "Whole Lotta Love" comes on.
"Do you really like that?" she asked. "What in the world is it about?"
I thought: "It's about his cock, Mom." But I said: "Mom, he loves his girlfriend so much that . . . uh . . ."
"That he loses his mind?"
"See, Mom, you do understand it!"
As for noisy artifacts that still feel pure and dirty, check out (most of) John Fogerty's new album.
And as for your blog, aren't you going to post tracks?
Bravo! Now you're talkin'. I was just getting ready to write you at your other blog and demand some more music talk and a fluid, ever-changing db top 10, and now this. Loved the ledzep post, though I only share your enthusiasm up to a point - if I never hear Stairway or Whole Lotta Love again, it'll be fine with me. But I have to confess that I, too, was a big fan when the stuff came out, and have even been listening to some of it in the last week or so. A coupla suggestions: 1) I KNOW you love the "old classics", but as you stated, there is some GREAT contemporary music, and I hope you don't neglect it. I enjoyed your previously published reviews of Radiohead and other bands/music, and would welcome comments on some other groups you mentioned, like Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Basement Jaxx, etc. 2) I was serious about a top 10! Let us know what's out there that's worth checking out, especially if it's "under the radar". I really enjoyed your LZ post, but don't neglect newer music we may not have heard. Looking forward to more!
Led Zep was a part of my youth and teen years and I enjoyed your take on the reunion concert. What I don't get is that there seems to be some amount of surprise and confirmation that Zep mattered then and still matters now. To me that's a no brainer. I've always considered them at the top of the heap of original rock bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Stones, etc., and can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t feel the same. Their music was both accessible and challenging, plus quite original. I'll never forget how different Kashmir sounded back in the day (and still does). Those chord progressions were and still are brilliant. Black Dog is also equally unique sounding. And Whole Lotta Love, though about a big penis, has that wild breakdown in the middle with all that psychedelic noise and later uses very cool pre-echoes on Plant's voice to great effect. And those are just their hits. If the much-maligned Stairway were the ONLY thing they turned out, they would still be worth worshiping for that alone. I can't see them not touring after this show. MM
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