Zepp: the greatest rock band’s live collection

Led Zeppelin split up 23 years ago but haven’t lost their status or the inspirational power over the decades. The band’s never reformed, although Robert Plant and Jimmy Page played together for a while only a few years ago. Still, the band is more popular then ever and their triple-collection of live tracks is atop the American charts and No. 5 in the UK.

‘How The West Was Won’ demonstrates well why they were the ultimate 1970s rock band – hated by many for their ear-splitting guitar riffs and endless drum solos, loved by millions for the same reasons. They are topping the US charts for the first time since 1979 and their accompanying two-disc DVD, titled ‘Led Zeppelin’, was estimated to have sold 100,000 copies in its first US week.

That’s broken the record previously held by The Beatles ‘Anthology’ DVD, released in April, by at least 40,000. And, listening/watching these performances, it becomes easy to understand why: this is one true SUPERGROUP, a band where all four members were on par, playing equally, it is like ‘the-four-frontman-band’! Plant sings his full range, Page plays notes in a unique way, fondly riffing as very few before him but prone to extended guitar solos; John Paul Jones decorates music with the whole kaleidoscope of tonality, John Bonham holding a colossal rhythms as if it chiselled in marble!

Listening to this selection of material from different eras and variety of places, several things are very obvious: first, there’s never, nor will there ever be, a band like the Zepp; second, this band only occasionally used bass guitar but Bonham’s drumming is so powerful you don’t even notice it; third, these are non-doctored recordings and certain mistakes, bum-notes can be heard which adds to the whole sense of a true document.

Then, who really ‘invented’ Heavy Metal because there were few songs on the band’s self-titled debut album, issued in March 1969, that question Black Sabbath’s claim as the ‘Godfathers of Metal’; the Ozzy crew’s eponymous maiden long-playing record was released in February 1970. Not talking about Zepp’s being the most pastoral, rock-folksy, ethereal, magical – all-bleeding-round!

Led Zepp decided to split up in 1980 after drummer Bonham died in a drinking binge. There’s been a lot of rumours and pressure for the band’s reformation but Page recently said a very important thing: “All these songs were recorded as improvisational pieces and we can’t reform and tell the new drummer to learn to play it; it would defy the purpose of the recordings.”

Enjoy the finest of collections understanding that these solos are from the time when people used different stimulants.

9/10