I've been collecting and transcribing a lot of articles, interviews, and scans lately so I thought it would be easier to just put them all here for easy reading
1960s misc.
BBC report of Led Zeppelin (1969)
Led Zeppelin II NME review (1969)
Cash Box Led Zeppelin tour article (1969)
1970s interviews/articles
Jimmy Page UFO article (NME, 1977)
1972 cover story (NME, 1972)
Jimmy Page & Bad Company (HP, 1975)
Jimmy Page discussing LZ III track by track (MM, 1970)
Jimmy Page Hit Parader interview (1972)
Led Zeppelin's Tour Carnage (NME, 1977)
Robert Plant interview (MM, 1970)
1977 Tour & past tours article (HP, 1977)
The Giants Rock On (MM)
1970s concert reviews/misc.
Earl's Court concert program
"Zep make masochism worthwhile" HOTH review (NME, 1973)
1972 LA concert review
California 1972 concert review
Melody Maker 1970 cover
German concert review - translated (1973)
Record Mirror 1970 cover
1980s interviews/articles
Robert Plant Kerrang! interview (1982)
Robert Plant Led Zeppelin discography interview (1983)
In their seventh year together, paranoia and fear seem to haunt Pink Floyd’s music, despite or perhaps because of success.
Much of the Pink Floyd’s recent work reflects the pressures and obsessions that afflict the itinerate rock musician. Without the lifestyle, there would not be music; and without the music, the lifestyle could not be supported.
Mad laughter and sane voices intermingle in the Floyd’s measured, timeless compositions, and it would be easy to read into the characters of the men who make up one of the most original and fulfilling of groups, a kind of omniscience.
Fans - and journalists - can and have been disappointed, or surprised to find that the Pink Floyd are but human. Their output is not prolific, they have been known to repeat material at concerts, they have yet to announce details of any plan to save the world, and what is more, they operate and enjoy taking part in a moderately successful football team.
Time wasted, the curse of money, ambitions unfulfilled, these are all matters that concern the Floyd, and from the basis of many of their musical ideas. They are not esoteric subjects and should be easily assimilated without recourse to mystical interpretation.
Yet even today, the Floyd occasionally feel misunderstood. But they can also feel a tremendous satisfaction in the knowledge that the band said to be “finished” when Syd Barrett left them all those years ago, has reached a peak that is impressive even in this age of supergroups.
Acceptance of the Floyd’s poised and delicate music has never been greater. On their last American tour they casually sold out massive venues from coast to coast; the “Dark Side Of The Moon” has taken world charts in its stride, while their British concerts sold out as quickly as tickets could be passed over the counter.
The Floyd have doubtless earned an attractive penny in their time, but unlike many other successful artists, they do not wallow in riches.
Roger Waters lives in a modest house in Islington, where his wife bakes pots in the garden shed. And while David Gilmour lives on a farm in the country, it is through his own efforts that the establishment has been made habitable. He might boast an ornamental pool in the garden, stocked with gaily colored fish, but he dug it himself.
It was to this rural retreat that I drove one sunny day, wending through the fields of Hertfordshire, made fearful by juggernauts wallowing on S-Bends and locals driving dented grey Cortinas at speed.
Arriving at the village at the appointed hour, a further sixty minutes were spent following the conflicting directions of rustics pushing bicycles. Still lost, I consulted a map that seemed to have been drawn up in 1932.
Hurling this aside my gaze perceived a fissure in the hedge opposite. It seemed scarcely possible I was parked outside the Gilmour estates and had passed it innumerable times in the last hour.
Such was the case. In a secluded courtyard an Alsatian stood guard and a venerable old horse clomped about. A youth in faded blue jeans and straggly black hair appeared like Heathcliffe at the cottage door. “Mr. Gilmour’s abode?”
“Yes indeed. Come in and have a cup of tea. It will calm you.” My motorist’s fury began to abate, as I drank in the ornate, but tasteful decor. Low beams, a juke box here, woodcarvings there - since taking over the abandoned Victorian farm house a couple of years ago, the guitarist had worked hard at improvements.
When he moved in there was no electricity or heating, and he lived rough as he created an open plan living area, constructed a music room, dug the aforementioned pool and cleaned out stables for Vim, his retired brewers' dray horse. He had, even permitted himself the luxury of a swimming pool, following the satisfactory sale of many of the Pink Floyd albums.
Then came Nemesis, not in the shape of a writer to Mailbag, but a man from the council, only minutes before my arrival. He had presented a copy of the council’s plans to build a housing estate on the surrounding greenbelt land, and to compulsorily purchase great chunks of the Floydian paradise.
“We’ll have to pack our bags and move,” he said with hopeless resignation. Our eyes turned to Megalopolis creeping over the horizon, the threatening blocks of Harlow, poised ready to march.
We toyed with ideas to build a wall of fire around the premises, to be touched off at an instant the bulldozers arrived, and I suggested sowing landmines in Vim’s meadow. Eventually we decided it would be more cheering to speak of the Pink Floyd.
For the benefit of new reader George Loaf (12), it should be explained that the group was born in 1967 during the heady days of flower power and UFO. Mr. Gilmour replaced the legendary Syd Barrett on guitar, who had written such chart hits as “See Emily Play”.
The Floyd went through a bleak period when they were written off but quietly drew about them an army of fans, and went about their creative work, wholly unmoved by the shifting fortunes and fashions that affect their contemporaries.
They are a proud, pioneering and somewhat detached group who sometimes look upon the cavortings of some of their fellow groups with faint dismay, not out of sour grapes, but from purely aesthetic considerations.
But first, what had the Floyd been doing these last few months, and how long had it taken them to conceive “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, which I believed was their best yet?
“We did the American tour,” said Dave. “We only ever do three week tours now, but that one was 18 dates in 21 days, which is quite hard. We started recording the LP in May last year, and finished it around January. We didn’t work at it all the time of course. We hadn’t had a holiday in three years and we were determined to take one. On the whole, the album has a good concept…”
Isn’t it their best yet?
“I guess so. A lot of the material had already been performed when we recorded it, and usually we go into the studio and write and record at the same time. We started writing the basic idea ages ago, and it changed quite a lot. It was pretty rough to begin with. The songs are about being in rock and roll, and apply to being what we are on the road. Roger wrote ‘Money’ from the heart.”
Money seemed to be a touchy subject for musicians and fans alike. Were the Floyd cynics?
“Oh no - not really. I just think that money’s the biggest single pressure on people. Even if you’ve got it, you have the pressure of not knowing whether you should have it, and you don’t know the rights and wrongs of your situation.
“It can be a moral problem, but remember the Pink Floyd were broke for a pretty long time. We were in debt when I joined and nine months afterwards I remember when we gave ourselves £30 a week, and for the first time we were earning more than the roadies.”
For a band that relies on creating moods, good sound was essential for the embryo Floyd.
“We hardly had any equipment of our own. We had a light show, but we had to scrap it for two years. We’ve had lights again for the last couple of years, but in the meantime we developed the basic idea of the Asimuth co-ordinator.
“We did a concert at the Festival hall with the new sound system, and none of us had any idea what we were doing. I remember sitting on the stage for two hours feeling totally embarrassed. But we developed the ideas, and it was purely down to setting moods and creating an atmosphere.”
To digress, what did Dave think of Hawkwind, the newest prophets of the UFO tradition?
“I don’t ever listen to them, but they seem to be having jolly good fun,” said Dave without the trace of a smile.
What about the Moody Blues?
“I’m not too keen on the Moody Blues. I don’t know why - I think it’s all that talking that gets my goat. It’s a bit like poets’ corner.”
Dave did not want to be drawn on the subject of rivalry, but he did admit to hearing with pleasure that an expensive piece of equipment belonging to another group had collapsed. The group had recently tried to poach the Floyd’s road crew.
Looking back over his six years or so with the group, what milestones did he see in their development.
“There haven’t been any particular milestones. It’s all gone rather smoothly. We’ve always felt like we have led some sort of cult here, but in America it’s been slow but sure. This year in the States it’s been tremendous, but I can’t say why - specifically. We have been able to sell out two to fifteen thousand seaters ever night on the tour - quite suddenly.
“We have always done well in Los Angeles or New York but this was in places we had never been to before. Suddenly the LP was number one there and they have always been in the forties and fifties before.
“No - success doesn’t make much difference to us, it doesn’t make any difference to our output, or general attitudes. There are four attitudes in the band that are quite different. But we all want to push forward and there all sorts of things we’d like to do.
“For Roger Waters it is more important to do things that say something. Richard Wright is more into putting out good music and I’m in the middle with Nick. I want to do it all, but sometimes I think Roger can feel the musical content is less important and can slide around it.
“Roger and Nick tend to make the tapes of effects like the heartbeat on the LP. At concerts we have quad tapes and four track tape machines so we can mix the sound and pan it around. The heartbeat alludes to the human condition and sets the mood for the music which describes the emotions experienced during a lifetime. Admist the chaos - there is beauty and hope for mankind.
“It’s amazing… at the final mixing stage we thought it was obvious what the album was about, but still a lot of people, including the engineers and the roadies, when we asked them, didn’t know what the LP was about. They just couldn’t say - and I was really surprised. They didn’t see it was about the pressures that can drive a young chap mad.
“I really don’t know if our things get through, but you have to carry on hoping. Out music is about neuroses, but that doesn’t mean that we’re neurotic. We are able to see it, and discuss it. ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ itself is an allusion to the moon and lunacy. The dark side is generally related to what goes on inside people’s heads - the subconscious and the unknown.”
Did the Floyd argue among themselves much?
“A fair bit I suppose, but not too traumatic. We’re bound to argue because we are all very different. I’m sure our public image is of 100 per cent spaced out drug addicts, out of our minds on acid. People do get strange ideas about us. In San Francisco we had a deputation from the Gay Liberation Front: ‘I hear you guys are into Gay Lib’; I don’t know how they could tell…”
As a guitarist Dave had been somewhat overshadowed by the Floyd’s strong corporate image. But his virile, cutting lines are one of their hallmarks and a vital human element. Did he ever fancy working out on a solo album, of forming a rock trio?
“I get all sorts of urges but really nothing strong. Put it down to excessive laziness. No I don’t do sessions, I don’t get asked. Any frustration I might have about just banging out some rock and roll are inevitable, but are not a destructive element to our band. I have a lot of scope in Pink Floyd to let things out. There are specially designated places where I can do that.”
In the past the Floyd have been subject to criticism, not the least appearing in the MM. How do they react to that?
“React? Violently! People tend to say we play the same old stuff - that we do the same numbers for years. We don’t. We are playing all new numbers now, except for ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’. The Who are still playing ‘My Generation’, and nobody complains about that.
“We can take criticism when it’s valid. But we are only human and we can only do so much. Sometimes it surprises me when we play really well, and spend some time on presenting a special show, like we did at Radio City in New York, and we get knocked.
“Some people dislike the basic premise of what we are all about. Then their criticism is a waste of time. For someone to criticize you who understands you, and you can say where you have fallen down - that’s valid.
“There are some people who come to our shows with no real interest in what we are doing, don’t like the group, so they don’t like the concert. We put all the bad reviews into a little blue book.”
This time Dave was smiling. (Geo Loaf, please note. Musician’s joke: Gilmour does not really have a “little blue book”. He was speaking lightly, in fun.)
As a key member of a band with its gaze fixed firmly on the future, it seemed unlikely Dave would want to reminisce, yet he was happy enough to recall their origins.
“Nick Mason has got a date sheet ten yards long with all the gigs in red ink - every one since 1967. It’s quite extraordinary when you look at the gigs we got through - four or five a week.
“We couldn’t do that now, not when you think of the equipment we carry. The roadies have to be there by eight in the morning to start setting up. It’s a very complicated business. Things still go wrong, but we virtually carry a whole recording studio around with us, all the time.
“In 1967 no one realized that sound could get better. There was just noise, and that’s how rock and roll was. As soon as you educate people to something better, then they want it better - permanently. PA’s were terrible in those days - but we’ve got an amazing one now.
“Before we do a gig, we have a four page rider in our contract with a whole stack of things that have to be got together by the promoter. We have to send people round two weeks beforehand to make sure they’ve got it right, otherwise they don’t take any notice.
“There have to be two power systems, for the lights and PA. Otherwise the lighting will cause a buzz through the speakers. Usually a stage has to be built - to the right size. We’re got eleven tons of equipment, and on our last American tour it had to be carried in an articulated truck.
“Oh yes, it’s the death of rock and roll. Big bands are coming back.
“There was a long period of time when I was not really sure what I was around to do, and played sort of back-up guitar. Following someone like Syd Barrett into the band was a strange experience. At first I felt I had to change a lot and it was a paranoid experience. After all, Syd was a living legend, and I had started off playing basic rock music - Beach Boys, Bo Diddley, and “The Midnight Hour”. I wasn’t in any groups worth talking about, although I had a three-piece with Ricky Wills who’s now with Peter Frampton’s Camel.
“I knew Syd from Cambridge since I was 15, and my old band supported the Floyd on gigs. I knew them all well. They asked me if I wanted to join when Syd left, and not being completely mad, I said yes, and joined in Christmas ’68.
“I later did the two solo albums with Syd. God, what an experience. God knows what he was doing. Various people have tried to see him and get him together, and found it beyond their capabilities.
“I remember when the band was recording ‘See Emily Play’. Syd rang me up and asked me along to the studio. When I got there - he gave me a complete blank.
“He is one of the great rock and roll tragedies. He is one of the most talented people and could have given a fantastic amount. He really could write songs and if he had stayed right, could have beaten Ray Davies at his own game.
“It took a long time for me to feel part of the band after Syd left. It was such a strange band, and very difficult for me to know what we were doing. People were very down on us after Syd left. Everyone thought Syd was all the group had, and dismissed us.
“They were hard times. Even our management. Blackhill believed in Syd more than the band. It really didn’t start coming back until ‘Saucerful Of Secrets’ and the first Hyde Park free concert. The big kick was to play for our audiences at Middle Earth. I remember one terrible night when Syd came and stood in front of the stage. He stared at me all night long. Horrible!
“The free concerts were really a gas. The first one had 5,000 people and the second had 150,000. But the first was more fun. We tried to do two more singles around this time, but they didn’t mean a thing. They’re now on the ‘Relics’ album.”
Where lay the future for Floyd?
“God knows. I’m not a prophet. We have lots of good ideas. It’s a matter of trying to fulfill them. It’s dangerous to talk about ideas, or you get it thrown at you when you don’t do it. We have vague ideas for a much more theatrical thing, a very immobile thing we’d put on in one place.
“Also we want to buy a workshop and rehearsal place in London. We’ve been trying to get one for some time.
“No we don’t want our own label - but we do have our own football team! We beat Quiver nine-one recently, and now there’s talk of a music industries’ cup. Oh - and we played the North London Marxists. What a violent bunch. I bit my tongue - and had to have stitches.”
The noise cajunked, and beefed outwards, filling each corner of the circular, space-aged Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, New York State.
Sixteen thousand people didn’t know whether they were coming or going. Many danced, crazily, while others just stood, stared and smiled.
Led Zeppelin had been off stage four times. Four times they had fled under the archway to the side of the stage, and four times an unnatural din of screaming and cheering and unbelievable begging had brought them back out.
Now their set was approaching four hours in length - four incredible hours of the most wonderful music. Jimmy Page was on his toes, shaking and trying to pull out a last batch of magical notes. He’d pulled so many that evening, it seemed inconceivable that he could maintain such a peak. But something tricked him, and he spun round, ran across to Robert Plant, bursting, and slamming chords. Plant smiled, threw his head back, and the band rocked so hard you’d have thought there was no tomorrow.
It was one of the most amazing concerts I’d seen from any band, at, any time. Nothing had gone missing, it had been the complete act. There had been power, climax after climax, beauty, funk, rock, boogie, totally freaked passages, and such constant, snarling energy that on this evening Led Zep could have provided enough human electricity to light half of America.
Does anybody really know how big Led Zep are?
So you’ll get reports of English bands doing “well” in America, and the reports will be long. You’ll hear The Stones, Elton John and The Faces before you hear of Led Zep. Somehow somebody forgot Led Zeppelin when they were writing home.
And yet for four years Zep have been slaying America. For four years they have met with the doomy criticism that they could never do as well again, and yet they’ve come back, and done better.
The people know it. The scenes are just ridiculous. Auditoriums and halls are being sold out without any advertising.
Strange how the Zep became unfashionable back home. Sure, they sell albums, and they can fill the Empire Pool - but where were all the trimmings, where was the real flash, the excitement? It was in the audience to be sure, but for some reason the media took it all with a pinch of salt. That Led Zeppelin are possibly the biggest band in the world never figured. And that’s a sad mistake.
It figures here, mind. Here Zep are truly recognized. Why do you think they come so often? Money, sure… But also because Zep are a band that love playing, and here there are no inhibitions. They find their audience. Here they play their best.
“The scenes have possibly amazed you,” said John Paul Jones. “But this has been happening for four years now. I think we all feel a bit annoyed that nobody really knows it back home. Do they really know what we’re doing?”
This feeling is common within the band. Why, you might say, should they worry? They do well, the audience - which is the main thing - knows just how big they are. Why should they bother about wee small England and its fickle ways?
Well, they’re English, and like most people, they also have egos. They’d just like England to know what they’re doing.
“Our egos have been hurt,” says Rob Plant.
“They really have. For some reason English critics have never told the truth about us. For some reason they’ve been out to get at us a bit. So things are clouded over, and nobody gets to know what’s really happening. There’s been so much bullshit printed it’s just untrue.
“We read pages on some band - name not mentioned - saying just how big they are here. You ask the people here just how big they are. We know. You see it makes the English press look ridiculous. It’s so annoying,” added Jones. “Here we are slaving away, and getting consistently incredible reactions and nobody back home can care anything about us.” He shook his head. “It’s just not right.”
Don’t get the idea that Zep are just peeved little boys, with a chip on their shoulders. It’s not a case of that at all. It’s not a case of them having their own ideas as to how big they are. That position can be seen in a matter of seconds over here. Zep are ace - there are no two ways about it.
“Maybe,” said Plant, “if we were as big in England as we are here, I would be able to walk down a bloody street without being stopped,” he laughed. “Don’t know if I’d like that or not.”
The Scene was The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, on a sickening, heavy, hot New York day. Manager Peter Grant was stood with two house detectives in a corridor. His huge frame dwarfed them somewhat. There had been some trouble over the amount of people visiting Bonzo Bonham’s room, and, as per usual, a hotel had it in for longhairs.
That night before had seen the band play the first of two concerts at Nassau. They were overjoyed at how it had gone.
“Something has really happened this time,” said Plant. “Something has really clicked. It’s fantastic, the spirit within the band is just fantastic.”
Plant is a cheery character, forever jigging, and rocking around, spreading a laugh or two with the first colorful Brummie accent I’ve ever heard. Talk centered on football.
Page was quietly going about his business, and then in a fit of laughter Bonzo appeared. The grizzly King Drummer. An honest lad who like to swing sticks like fury, and drink at about the same pace.
“Y’um wouldn’t believe what bloody trouble goin’ on with my room.” It appears that trouble forever surrounds dear Bonzo.
Pretty soon the line of limousines was poking its way in and out of the absurd traffic towards Long Island. The three cars were in radio contact with each other, and the state of traffic soon decreed that somebody’s house could not be visited. “Make sure the spare ribs are driven to the Coliseum,” came a message over the radio.
Now the Coliseum is a strange building. It sits seemingly in the middle of nowhere, looming like a space research centre, circular and concrete.
Why didn’t they play the Madison Square?
“Because it cost 5,300 dollars to book that place,” says Peter Grant, “and that’s just absurd. This is a great place, and this is where the kids live. Shame there aren’t places like this in England. It’s getting absurd over there now. There’s nowhere to play.
“You know I wanted to put the band on at Waterloo Station. You know, that massive area before the platforms. I thought it was a great idea - you know we could have Led Zeppelin specials coming in on the platforms. It was going to work, but the station authorities said there was one late train that would get in the way. Shame, it would have been great, imagine Led Zep playing Waterloo Station - a completely covered hall, and good acoustics.”
They’ve got a nice PA there.
The Coliseum was beginning to fill, and when I walked out with Plant he was met with a load of handshakers.
“Just want to say you’re the best band in the world. You just are. I just want to say that,” said one lad. “Ta very much,” said Plant, and gave the boy a back-stage pass. “You’re the best band in the world,” said another. And they really meant it.
Martin, one of the famous crew of Led Zep roadies, was squeezing Plant’s lemons in the dressing room. A half-dozen lemons, mixed with honey and tea to feed the Plant voice. How it kept going that night was amazing.
Bonzo was just carrying his sticks, and the clothes he’s arrived in. “I got stopped backstage somewhere you know, and they wouldn’t believe I was with the band. They said, where’s your stage clothes. I said where’s me what? …”
The time was right, and the band made it’s way out of the room, and stood in a large hall backstage. The excitement just round the corner was thick as 16,000 people made ready. There was that hum, that frightening hum.
An electrical tone was started. It sounded like the rising drone of a bomber. It got louder, louder, till it filled the whole place, and then the band walked onto the stage. The place collapsed, and the band without hesitation kicked into rock.
Page stabbed out a riff, and Plant yelled and squealed, and glory, all Hell broke lose.
Page is the complete guitarist. He captures every emotion that sears through his head, and channels it through his arms. Whether it be a chord, a riff, or a gaggle neckful of notes, he is perfect.
And when technical ability might just swamp feeling, Page finds a dirty dischord, and lets it cut ugly and messy through the tapestry. It sort of jerks your body and throws you, and then he finds a true line again, and weaves on in a straight, sharp direction. Their music has indeed got better. There appears to be a deal more open ended excitement about the unit.
Page is in fine fettle, swaying on his heels, and then shaking his mass of hair into a blur of tangles, which are picked up by the many spots and turned gold, and then white. Plant gets all very sexual, and mouths, heaves and sighs, and frenzied spluttering down the mike…
And then he forces that screaming voice right out. Page ends the riff, Bonzo falls silent, Jones stops, and only Plant's crazy voice assaults the silence.
Three acoustic numbers give people time to breathe, lie back and relax. John Paul Jones exhibited a new electric mandolin, that gave a good colorful feel to songs written on Welsh hillsides.
Then they all upped and left dear Bonzo.
He remained, and delivered the most wrecking drum solo you’d ever imagine. He beat the things so hard, with sticks and hands that I thought his arms were going to fall off, or maybe the kit would shatter. His object was to reach grumbling thunder, and that he did, a sort of crazy stampede of drums and sharp, slashed cymbals. It went on over 15 minutes and he wouldn’t stop.
Bonzo would cool it all down to just one motion - he was leaving out what was already bopping in everyone’s heads. Everyone knew what Bonzo was playing, but he wasn’t playing it - if you can see what I mean.
And then he struck back, and with no nerves at all just smacked everything till it hurt, and hurt. The tempo doubled, and doubled again, and his anguished face and black hair was wet through and streaked with burning sweat.
His final crescendo was just not true. I stood and shook my head in disbelief as he panned everything in sight. Toil and troubles, it just hubbled and crumpled out in a monstrous form. Peter Grant was shaking his head too, and Jim Page, who had snuck back onto the side of the stage, was also staring with admiration at Bonzo. It exploded in one mass of fire and flesh, and Page jumped into view again, and played with his buddy.
The Coliseum just couldn’t understand it. They got up and for five solid minutes applauded Bonzo. It was heartwarming, it almost made you want to cry, such was the emotion about, such was the pleasure, and enjoyment of applauding something that had been so incredible.
“Someone once asked me what technicalities I applied to my playing,” Bonzo had said to me. “I said technicalities, what the hell are you going on about? I said this is my technicality, and raised my hand into the air, and let it fall. Head to drum, that’s what it is, head to drum.
"I’m not trying to be any superstar. I just do my bit as one quarter of Led Zeppelin. When I have a solo I don’t ever imagine drummers around watching me. I don’t try and impress people who play the drums. I play for people. I don’t try and perform the most amazing changes in tempo, or make people watch me. I just couldn’t do that - it would take away the essence of Jimmy’s guitar, and Robert’s voice. John Paul and myself lay down a thick back-drop, that’s what we do.”
The place was in a fever now of sheer adulation. The band stocked into “Whole Lotta Lovin’,” with Pagey experimenting bizarrely with the reverb unit. He stood there, on his own, slashing and playing loud. The chords were held in their amps, and then shot out with echo, just as he hit another. Then he took a cello bow, and scraped and banged it across the strings.
Now we’re backstage, and the band have run off, but Bonzo’s saying that’ve got to do another, and the screaming is really painful on the ear from outside.
John Paul Jones takes the stage on his own, and sits at an organ. From that he delivers a medley of songs, some old, some new, some forgotten, and then into spine-chilling religious chords.
Soon all the band were back on stage, and Page laid a boogie out, and Plant growled “Boogie Mama,” and what a boogie it was. It was like some stoked-up train belting on into the night - Bonzo being the pistons, Page the driver, it gouged into everybody’s head.
Things were coming fast and furious. Next thing you know they’re into “Peggy Sue,” and rock ’n’ roll medley. And America goes wild, and dances.
So now we’re into the limousine again and Plant is shaking his head. “They’d never believe how good it is here back home. They’d just never believe what happened tonight.”
"THEY'RE BACK: Led Zeppelin On Tour" (Hit Parader, July 1977)
The telephone rang at five in the morning and the long distance caller wanted to know, “When will Led Zeppelin be in Dallas?”
And so, the hysteria begins.
After a two-year absence from the performing stage - mostly due to Robert Plant’s car accident and eventual recovery - Zeppelin returns (they’re probably here as you read this) to the U.S. for their big one.
They started February 27th in Fort Worth, Texas, and continued through Houston, Baton Rouge, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Tempe, San Diego, and Los Angeles through March 13th.
After a two week vacation break, Zep will be back for concerts in April in the Midwest and Canada. May 1st through 19th find Plant, Page, Bonham and Jones collapsed, at home in England, and then back here for Southern dates, ending up in New York City for multiple shows at Madison Square Garden in June.
That’s not all folks. Watch for the world’s biggest band to return in the summer for a few of those big, outdoor stadium concerts. While last summer’s stadium saturation proved a bomb for many bands, Led Zeppelin will surely have no trouble filling these massive places.
***
The first time I saw Zeppelin close up was in Jacksonville, Florida, on their 1973 tour. Jacksonville was hot, and it was one of those cities where, when you got off the plane, it smelled as if they had a bread factory there. I had seen the band before, at Madison Square Garden years ago, but somehow I didn’t feel the power, the full force of this foursome … until I was actually up close (lucky enough to be able to watch from the side of the stage).
Of course, from then on, I was a fan, and I could have been at the back of the hall for all I care (well…) and loved Zep’s lengthy shows.
Zep fans realize how subtle those shows are… the heavy metal riffs that they can do in their sleep aside, the music has changed, developed, and constantly grows. I always get a kick out of watching Robert carry on onstage, and Jimmy’s guitar playing is in a class by itself.
So - I, along with all of you who go nuts over this group, am pleased that they’ll be back this year for such a major tour. They’ll cover the entire U.S. … and then be back in the summer for some special concerts.
Remembering some of the times I’ve been on the road with the band, these things come to mind:
New Orleans, 1973: Lounging around the pool at the top of the Royal Orleans Hotel. Robert wearing a red bikini, Jimmy fully dressed in red (I think) velvet trousers and a print shirt. I interviewed both of them for the first time, and Robert was so easy to talk to I was relieved. Jimmy was slightly more hesitant, revealing little, yet we talked about his music for over an hour and I felt comfortable with the band from that moment on.
After the New Orleans shows, we went to the Deja Vu, it was a full moon, everybody drank too much, and I’ll always think of New Orleans that way.
New York, 1973: I had seen the band a few times since the early New Orleans days - I think we flew in the Starship to Pittsburgh and I begged them to allow photographer Bob Gruen to take a group shot of them (something they never seemed to want to get together). Roy Harper was on the plane with the lads, and he and Robert posed for pix on the white (it’s since been dyed black) fake fur bedspread in the bedroom of the back of the Starship.
By the time they were to play Madison Square Garden, it was the end of the tour, they were tired. That Madison Square Garden set of gigs has been fully documented in Zep’s film, “The Song Remains the Same” - so it needn’t be discussed heavily here. But recalling the final night, and the robbery which lost Zep several hundred thousand dollars, Jimmy said to me recently:
“It was a night when we came offstage and Peter (Grant) had a funny expression on his face … But we knew, didn’t we … halfway through the gig. I was amazed that somebody had the balls to do it…”
Robert interjected: “Well, it was another one of those things that you don’t anticipate. What are you gonna do? Break down and cry? We’d just played a great gig, and that’s what we’d started for in the first place…”
***
1975 brought them back - and all I remember about that tour was a series of short hops on the Starship to various cities: Detroit, Montreal, and so forth. The band travels with a tight entourage; it’s really a very small group of people that go with Zeppelin, unlike other bands who seem to pick up new friends in every city. Richard Cole, tour manager, runs the show with a firm hand … indeed, it would be hard put to imagine Led Zeppelin without Cole or Peter Grant, the manager who is surely the fifth member of the band.
Chicago, 1975: I do remember John Bonham in the dressing room roaring, “I came in after Karen Carpenter on the Playboy drummer poll…” He didn’t seem amused. And John Paul Jones didn’t want to be quoted on a snide remark he’d made. “That’s not going to be my first quote in ten years,” he insisted, and I’ve forgotten what it was.
When the band came back to New York this year for the premiere of their movie, “The Song Remains the Same”, they seemed pleased with the film, and enthusiastic about their promoting it. But anyone who knew them could tell that they were just itching to get back on the road… playing onstage is what it’s about for this band, and nothing gets their adrenalin going quite so much.
Talking about the film, Jimmy said: “The pull of the music, well, it can’t be escaped, it’s there and it pulls one into it. There are points onstage where you can tell that concentration strays … or the mind fills up. But when you weigh the whole film, you’ve got musical sections, you’ve got a night frozen in time like a documentary of what it was, fantasy sequences, and then the documentary proper - which was the robbery. We don’t play that up much, in fact it was quite tongue in cheek if you really think about it.”
“But of course we want to get back on the road, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? We just didn’t have any choice, what with the accident and all. You don’t start dictating to nature. But as soon as we can, we’ll be back.”
They’re back. To be continued from the road. - Lisa Robinson
"Out Through The Front Door" Coda album review (Creem, Feb. 1983)
First of all, let me confess that I would have given anything to be a bat on the wall at Jimmy Page’s castle the night the Atlantic brain trust showed up to talk him into piecing together Coda, the “new” Led Zeppelin album of previous unreleased outtakes taken from recording sessions throughout Zep’s humongous career as the reigning rock ’n’ roll band of the last decade.
“Oi Jimmy,” I could’ve heard them whining, “at least before it was only a jungle; now it’s a farshtinkener arcade out there! Who can argue with a quarter? Look, take another million - this one off the books. Name it, you got it, OK? I mean, we have to have something to save the year. You want to know how bad things are? I’ll tell you how bad things are. The Vanilla Fudge have reformed. And it was our idea! You sure we can’t talk you into a new drummer, like Varner’s did with that guy with a big nose, whats-zisname, Townberg? We can find a sponsor, Jimmy. National, yet. It may be a shampoo…you’re not getting your hair cut also, are you?” And on and on.
Anyway, Coda is now upon us, and perhaps the best thing one can say is that it’s almost impossible to make either too much or too little out of the record. Whether this was really all that Zeppelin had stored up in the vaults is between you, me, and the accountants, but I would wager a yes vote in the light of the fact that, of the eight tracks here, two are covers and one is literally just John Bonham thrashing away at all those drums of his. And the remaining five clock in at an average of under four and a half minutes, a full 60 seconds less than the time it usually takes just for these guys to boil water (“Communication Breakdown,” “Immigrant Song,” “Tangerine,” “Rock ’n’ Roll,” and "Dancing Days” excluded, of course.)
Which is not to say that Coda is without worth, because it does have its strong points. Especially on side two, where discounting “Bonzo’s Montreux,” and the aforementioned crash course in head banging augmented solely by Page’s “electronic treatments” (utterly aimless percussive noodling on the old synth), there are three songs all recorded in ’78 that make you wish that In Through The Out Door had been the double album instead of Physical Graffiti (that record is pretty much what I thought this one was going to sound like, but without the custard pie “Boogie With Stu” or “Kashmir”). “Wearing And Tearing” is this album’s winner of the Black Dog seal of mayhem award for its barefoot-in-Bizzaroland breakneck riffing and what is undoubtedly the most outre Buddy Holly reference I’ve ever heard, when right near the end, Page tosses into the whirlwind the intro from “I’m Gonna Love You Too.”
“Ozone Baby” sports some authentic radioactive guitar spillage as well as sleight-of-hand dribble ’n’ shoot bass work by John Paul Jones. And “Darlene,” with its piano-shufflin’ ‘50s ease and Plant’s unhippified “I got a pink carnation and a pick-up truck” stance, neatly foreshadows most of what’s going on on Pictures At Eleven.
As for side one, well, each track is moderately representative where Zeppelin was at various points in time. A ’69 recording of Ben E. King (?)’s “We’re Gonna Groove” smacks of the bad white boy funk Zep tried to invent on Led Zeppelin II, ‘70s “Poor Tom” has the peaceful acoustic looniness that earmarked Led Zep III, a live cover of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” recalls the band’s earliest bouts of blues perversion fever and will no doubt make Willie Dixon a very happy man when the royalty check arrives. The closing track, “Walter’s Walk” (if nothing else, Led Zeppelin set the record for song titles based on nothing in the lyrics), features that most standard Jimmy Page trick, the patented steal-from-yourself guitar workout, since you can plainly make out the riff pattern from Presence’s “Hots On For Nowhere,” a mere four years early right here (just how many times did he use and re-use the Yardbirds’ “White Summer” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor” anyway?). Then again, one of the great things about Led Zeppelin - and there certainly were many - was their utter chutzpah in the face of all taste, until they ironically became the face of heavy metal taste itself. And, considering the fact that eight tracks’, or even four tracks’, worth of little more than disconnected drum and bass parts with regular intervals of Plant-ian shrieks and Page guitar snorts would have sold the same amount of copies as Coda will, their world, then, ends not with a bang but with class - and with a winner. - Billy Altman
