I will say this: of COURSE I don’t want to see a band just playing 3:30 studio versions of their songs when I see them live.
But, some bands get really full of themselves and can’t always pull off the 20 minute jams. . .some do it far too long, some do it far too boringly.
It’s all different band to band, too. If you go to see Phish, The Dead, Blues Traveller, Gov’T Mule, DMB, etc. you know you’re getting a lot of jamming. That’s what you’re going to the concert for.
If you go see a Hootie & The Blowfish Concert, you go in expecting to stay seated and listen to their albums, possibly played in a different order.
Now, buying a DVD of a band, one might want something in between. If you’re watching the DVD repeatedly, you really don’t want to sit through 30 minutes of Page bowing his guitar and playing the Theremin on Dazed & Confused, but, you’re not looking for a video based on the studio version either.
I effin’ hate Led Zeppelin. Change the station when one of their songs comes on. I can’t explain why; the music sounds great, which I resent because I hate them. I don’t like how they ripped off blues artists, but probably lots of bands have done that.
It’s an irrational, hate-filled prejudice. Kind of a fetish, really.
I was a Led Zeppelin fan until I saw them live as a teenager. I saw them in the Kingdome in Seattle in July 1977, and they were horrible: they were sloppy, uninspired, aloof, and soulless. The aimless and seemingly interminable solos bored me, and Robert Plant’s vocals—the range of which had seemingly shrunk to about a minor third—was about as expressive as a cough. The fact that 60,000 torpid concertgoers disagreed with me changed nothing.
At just about the same time I became exposed to the music Led Zeppelin had made a career out of shamelessly ripping-off, and I quickly concluded that Led Zeppelin is music for kids, while Howlin’ Wolf, for example, is music for adults—Muddy Waters is a man’s music (spell it M-A-N … ). I then discovered Fairport Convention and realized what Led Zeppelin was unsuccessfully attempting to achieve with their folksy stuff, and I discovered Richard Thompson—a songwriter and guitarist far more accomplished and interesting than Jimmy Page could hever hope to become.
I think Led Zeppelin had a few successes: I like the first record somewhat, despite the fact that virtually every song is stolen from someone else. But after that their stuff is largely unconvincing recycled blues played at an amphetamine tempo for unsuspecting suburban white kids—and while that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, in this particular case it does.
Weighing in with the “older” crowd and as a musician. I think what you are hearing, in terms of the repetition of riffs, is the fallout of many years of playing the same songs. There are certain riffs that get into your head and your fingers and they are likely to come out in some form or other when you’re improvising. It’s kind of like pushing the buttons on a touch tone phone. When I go to call my sister, who has had the same phone number for over twenty years, my fingers automatically dial her number without thinking. If I have to actually say her number out loud, I have trouble recalling it. Certain moods, styles, chord progressions are going to produce an automatic response based on previous experience. He’s probably not even thinking about what he’s playing, just feeling it. I do the same thing on the piano and guitar when I’m just sitting back messing around. If I’m in a certain mood, there are certain riffs that automatically come out and then I play around with variations of it.
On the live v studio concert experience, the standards were definitely different in the 70’s and early 80’s. And people were judged on their musical talent alone, not on their MTV-standard looks. You had to be a good musician and good musicians are going to be able to improvise better. One of the most surprising concert experiences I had was the Doobie Brothers. We were looking for a concert to go to (1980’ish) and there wasn’t much happening so I ended up with tickets to see those guys. I kind of liked their radio stuff but thought it was pretty pop-oriented and not exactly complicated musically. Those freakin guys put on the most incredible show, including some serious jamming that I never thought they would be capable of. And of course the inhalation factor made it all the better.
I just wanna lead out with saying that I think Led Zeppelin were just one of the most bone-crushingly. mind-blowingly, life-affirmingly, massivley great bands ever -live or on record. Just phenomenal. But…
How much better could they have been if they’d had a decent drummer?
Seriously. If there is one thing which is dull about this mighty band, it wasn’t Page’s “noodling”, it wasn’t the “oooh babys” or the “hey nows”, it was Bonham sounding like he was playing with shackles on his feet. IMO if anyone’s legacy to rock needs to be reappraised, it’s John Bonham.
For what it’s worth I usually get seven shades of shit kicked out of me for saying this in pub arguments…
As you should.
You are welcome to your opinion, but Bonham was great. I read about 4 or 5 years ago he is the most sampled drummer used by rappers. So it isn’t just Classic rock fans that appreciate him. There is a reason you think he is appraised so highly.
Can you please tell us who you think the great drummers were/are?
mamboman - do you have any background in drumming or percussion?
I have worked with a LOT of drummers and never heard any of the say anything but the highest praise for Bonham - and this is in situations where they spoke their mind, not just mouthed the official line. As some posters may remember, my drummer in my band has worked with a ton of top drummers out there (he is a record producer as his day job) and he tells me tons of stories about who really sucks behind the scenes. Bonham ain’t one of them, by a long shot.
John Bonham was the greatest member of that band!! And the greats rock drummer of all time!
His drumming is still influencing rock music today!,
HE made Rock drumming, rocking drumming. he had such a huge sound and feel, yet could play light as a feather, a right foot (bass drum) that could run marathons and chops to boot on top of all this.
He melded some of the greatest motown and rnb grooves into his rock Zeps music is so hip, not to mention using such a huge open drum sound, as opposed to the cardboard sounding muffling/close micing techniques at the time
he is the greatest!!, no really!!
Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
…calms down…
as fro the OP,
I enjoy a lot fo the “noodling” and solos, if zep was a band that kept it short and sweet it would be boring, they wouldn’t be the legends they are and Stairway would be a 4 min long pop song.
Do you understand music much, as in the theroy behind it…that might be a real factor in liking or not liking the “noodling”
Its like jazz i guess if you dont really understand the progression under it then its all “noodling” but as soon as you get a feel for what’s coming next you see the logic and all the “noodles” start to connect into a big melodic idea…
I have to chime in here, pool.
Of course you are right, because Peart would have to be one of the greatest, because he’s in the greatest band in the world.
But, having said that- I think that the reason people like just-like-the-album concerts is because Led Zep killed the extended jam. bludgeoned it to death and left the body unburied, IIRC.
Don’t give up just yet. Just because the term “jamband” is almost always followed shortly by some combination of the words “dirty, stupid, neo-hippy, need deodorant, wankster wannabe” is no reason to give up. Judge for yourself. I’m almost fifty, grew up with Zeppelin and their peers and still like Widespread Panic, Gov’t Mule, String Cheese Incident, Derek Trucks Band, moe. and many more. They ain’t all Phish. :eek:
And while a lot of the old bands are on the county-fair, milk-it-for-all-it’s-worth, reunion circuit, some (Allman Brothers) are making music as interesting and vital as anything they’ve ever done.
Thanks for the tips. Yep, we’re of the same era. I actually had tickets to see Gov’t Mule and Moe a few weeks ago, and didn’t use them since I had no one to go with. I did the same with Robert Plant tickets a few months ago. Now I just don’t buy tickets - concerts alone are no fun.
No, it’s a “music scene gap” issue. I’m an Allman Brothers fan, for example, and I’ve seen them live about three dozen times. The younger and older fans agree that the least interesting songs are almost always the ones that don’t depart from the recorded versions. Younger Phish fans and their ilk feel the same way, I’m sure.
You made a mistake. Even as a four-piece, the Mule is a powerful, powerful band who will play for a solid three hours and rock very hard.
As far as Led Zeppelin goes - they were THE '70s rock band, which means that they were incredibly self-indulgent. I haven’t heard their live stuff, but a band that gets self-indulgent in the studio is only going to get more excessive in concert. That stuff just doesn’t age well; time makes the flaws more obvious. It seems they thought everything they did was brilliant, and it wasn’t. Some of it was actually pretty dumb. I always thought Spinal Tap had more of Led Zeppelin in them than any other band.
