Zep is back!
Zeppelin had resurfaced back to earth. As if the separation of the member all these years had tear down also the breathing life of the mighty band, on Dec 10 2007, the members united to incarnate the long dormant monster of rock by the name of Led Zeppelin.
Jimmy’s hair is white now. He had developed a grandfather-like figure, complete with the tired face, bloomy belly and a bowing spine. There was also that finger incident which stalls the concert for 2 weeks from the planned date of 26th Nov to 10th Dec, which happened while Jimmy’s in his house, cleaning his garden. To stop short, let’s just say that Jimmy is definitely not the wild rocker with rock-and-roll lifestyle as we used to recognized him anymore.
So too with Percy and Jonesy (and Bonham too I guess, if he’s alive). To cut the story short, Zep is aging. And you think gods don’t age..
But what about the music? Does it age? Does it vanish consumed by periods and styles, and hip hop and electronica? Does it loses it’s gnarling teeth, that decades ago disembodied the very notion of rock and roll established in the mind of fans in those days and turned it into a whole new animal? Has it lost it’s position as the determinator of the term loud, beaten by the booming sound of house music and trance, and funky basslines of hip hop?
Well, Zep isn’t about to retire on that one..
In Dec 10, Zep reappear. Posing their gnarling teeth once again before the world, made of crystal clear heavy rock-and-roll sound, the concert was to be a reminder of everything I personally believed as the hardest yet the most powerful music ever appear in this world. Checking out Good Times and Bad Times, Stairway to Heaven, Since I’ve Been Loving You, Kashmir and of course the anthem which was built upon the mega riff, Whole Lotta Love, I was convinced once again that in fact gods don’t age. They just live on and on and on, until they die.
However, there are far more than just the songs that made Zeppelin Zeppelin. Zeppelin is Zeppelin because it raises anticipation. And if you asks what causes them to be able to raise anticipation, my answer is it’s in their blood. They are born to raise anticipation.
Firstly let’s go back to earliest days of Zeppelin, even before Zeppelin was born, when Zeppelin was named The New Yardbirds. A succesfull outfit that boomed in the late 60’s and crashed and left Jimmy Page, a former session guitarist and a relatively new member in the band, responsible in filling tour dates that was set for the band. From this early on, Jimmy, already a master of his craft at that time, has already cited anticipation among his fans. Jimmy was a session guitarist. He had filled the main guitarist position for Tom Jones’ hit “It’s Not Unusual” among others. As an experienced professional guitarist with extensive flight hours, who has taken more than many styles in his playing, who was involved with one of the most famous band in Britain in the sixties, the burden of forming a new, worthy to perform, band awaited Jimmy with waves of anticipation from his and the former band’s fans. It was simply had to be good with Jimmy around, after all, he was the experienced session guitarist and members of the Yardbirds wasn’t he??
So right from that very early moment, Jimmy was anticipated.
In his days, Zeppelin also has antiques off stage that sometimes far transcends their performance on stage. They were pure rock and roll bastards. The very role model of sex, drugs, and rock and roll behavior (Hotel rooms trashing, TV out of the window flying, drug taking, groupies poking, etc) – all the band following Zeppelin practically copied this sort of behavior after Zeppelin paved the way first. Their unpredictable real life persona featured side by side with their musical and concert column in the newspaper or magazine. Their life was a dream to many teenagers at the time, and it’s really not a dream at all. As audiences who hear waves after waves of stupendous behavior, the prospect of seeing the band performs life was an anticipation that renders going to classes or going to the office not particularly interesting anymore.
Add these with the ultimate determinant: the songs. Zeppelin had great songs, no doubt about it. But just how great is it really? It’s so great that it takes American black blues, revamps it into a louder form, add it with own mixture of folk, eastern, funk style, build it upon wide range guitar, drumming, and keyboard techniques, record it with genuinely expansive sound producing techniques, and last but not least, infuse it with a simple flair of just transcending everything that is already around, Zep found a form that is Zep and Zep only can produce and at the same time build an army of followers that ultimately come nowhere near the original.
But ok, maybe the recipe style description doesn’t give much help to anyone, since you don’t necessarily have Zeppelin even if you have all the ingredients. Let’s take a deeper look at the songs background.
The songs of Led Zeppelin were created by extremely creative musicians. This was apparent when one sees each member’s personal background. Jimmy and Jonesy were session players – a guarantee for skills and musicality. Percy and Bonzo were young players but already known individually in their own career paths. Percy for the psychedelic venture in the Hobstweedle, and Bonham for simply hitting the drums loudest compared to other drummers of his time. Assembled together in playing room, the sum of these individual’s interaction far surpassed the sum of it’s parts. And as the ultimate result of their venture, the songs they produced during those 11 years remain a cornerstone of heavy rock music even until now.
Zeppelin might as well be named Zeppelin the anticipated. There they were at the status of super stardom when suddenly Bonzo’s untimely death struck them. Zeppelin suddenly broke apart. Then they decided that they cannot go on. The world is poignant.
The passing of Bonzo fuels another anticipation about Zeppelin. Zeppelin was getting more and more matured. Their reputation, musical and otherwise, grew stronger and stronger. In short no one expects anything like the passing of any one member. They were indeed still very young at the time – Bonzo was only 32. And suddenly the next morning, the world woke up losing one of the great bands of the 70s. The surprise was too much.
Zeppelin went on to show 3 times more during the passing of Bonzo until the 21st century. It was barely enough. And they were not fully prepared, indicated by the poor performance they’ve showcased and the poor reception from the audience. The fans were anything but satisfied. The memory of the great Bonzo still pops hard in the head, the memory of the great Zeppelin hovers around like a desertly thirst went unquenched. People need Zeppelin. They were truly anticipated.
In Dec 10 2007, a clamor of sound went to being in London ’s new U2 arena. The water has poured. The thirst quenched even if only for those 20.000 lucky ones. The mighty Zeppelin didn’t go down as Keith Moon – the inventor of the name – predicted it would be. They fly alright. Swoosh after swoosh of rock world’s toughest and most majestic songs burst from the guitars of Pagey and Jonesy, from the howling of Percy, and from the beat of Jason Bonham, the son of the late drummer. The result?? Press can’t stop raving about it since then, fans scream for more, the world witnessed the hammer of the gods re-live their myth. It was an encore of outstanding proportion. Zeppelin the anticipated has filled the anticipation.
