I’ve often thought the most remarkable musical progression in a band is that of The Beatles between late '64 (Please, Please Me > Can’t Buy Me Love), and Jan '66 when John tossed in Tomorrow Never Knows - never mind the musical progression, look at what they crammed into that period in terms of personal development (provincial Liverpool lads to shaping psychedelia, via transcendental medication). Somewhere in those 24-30 months they wote aand recorded some toons as well …
But I saw this last night; best I can tell it’s about 9 months after Page and Grant went up to Birmingham to check out a local singer called Robert Plant.
What makes it totally authentic for me is they are nearly the finished article - see 3:00, Dazed and Confused (the song itself pre-existed) - but it’s basically one of the top three bands in the world, who know it before the world knows it, playing in front of a bunch of kids who seem to have taken the afternoon off school.
One of those moments in time where things are so out of sync - like Adele doing local London radio two weeks before the BRITS explosion; sometimes you just know. Anyway, wow, blew me away - from 3:05 - YouTube
True, but Zep started out mostly as Page’s brainchild, and he was of course a seasoned studio musician by then. They even started out as “The New Yardbirds”…there’s a clue that they weren’t formed de novo.
I’d personally say the Stones’ development was more astonishing (though they take many cues from the Beatles). Blues imitations (end of '64) to nifty mid-60s rock songwriting (end of '65) to wry British genre-busting compositions (end of '66 – Between the Buttons). They settled into a pure rock groove in '68 and never left it, so it’s easy to forget the earlier diversity.
How about the Mothers of Invention? Doo-wop parodies to blues jams to jazz fusion to musique concrète and more in, what, a year and a half? ('67-'68).
There was definitely something heavy going on in the Midlands (Birmingham and environs) circa '68-'69 that was at least as influential as the Liverpool talent of a few years before. The musicians Page found for Zep; Sabbath… As a geographer, I’d love to see this explored more and better (maybe it has been, in writing or film, and I just haven’t come across it).
They sure hacked up and pushed around “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” for the live performance. This would’ve been just about the time they released the album in Europe.
Yep, album recorded late September '68 (funded by Page), started touring it in the UK in first week October. Grant got the deal with Atlantic in November.
Not easy to pin down this performance in '69 - it definitely looks like a BBC studio, probably at Maida Vale or Shepherds Bush. But when … the kids look dressed for early Spring … March/April … Maybe they’d been a band for 8 months at this point.
One thing that video shows is how much they practiced. Right around the same time (Dec. '68), there’s the Rolling Stones Rock’n’Roll Circus (finally commercially released a few years ago), where the contrast is painful between the well-rehearsed Who and the under-rehearsed Stones. (I’m not saying anything about either band in general – this just happens to be the relative state of affairs that particular week).
Even though I bought all their albums, Led Zeppelin was always sort of a B+ band for me. But this was fantastic, and it’s hard not to see it as an A+ performance, especially as some have noted given how fresh the band was at that point. This was really worth the watch.
The notes indicate it was a broadcast from Danish TV sometime in Mar. '69, and the album was released in the UK on Mar. 31.
Page and Bonham were completely on, and JPJ was practically hidden in the background. I could barely make out his bass line. Plant was meh, just kind of lackluster for me.
Not much to add, but I have heard that when they first practiced together in a London basement apartment, they played Train Kept a Rollin, then a Yardbirds staple, and apparently the band’s sound was there from the beginning.
Well, on headphones (the laptop’s speakers are inadequate), JPJ comes through pretty well. I like the bass line he plays on that take of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” more than the one on the record, especially the second half. It’s both more tasteful and fire-y. That said, they could pull some treble out of the entire mix. The whole mix is kind of piercing, and there could be way more kick drum. But it’s 60’s TV, what are you really going to do?
I also like a lot of Plant’s performance on this recording more than the record, but that may be a matter of taste involving Jimmy Page’s production getting in the way of the story vs, me liking Plant’s actual voice.
The thing I’m struck by is that they’re a very loosely tight band. They are all over the place, but still seem to hit their marks. There’s no count for Page/Plant’s freak-outs, but Bonham and Jones still know when the next change is going to hit. That stuff is hard. I don’t know if it’s harder than following tight changes, but hitting that kind of jammy cue night after night is quite a trick. Sometimes the guitarist has a signature riff that signals then end of their improvised solo, Page doesn’t seem to usually have those. The rhythm section catches them, either way.
But the best example of their loose/tightness is the first song, “Communication Breakdown”. That’s not the intro to the record version. Bonham and Jones just feel out where the song starts from Page’s intro. On the solo, Page just goes crazy. There’s a tight solo already written for that song, you’ve already heard that on the record. Page follows it for about a bar, then goes off the ranch improvising, at 1:55 he goes chromatic, messes around in the lower range then finishes it off with a chromatic run that allows him to finish on the right chord for the change. Then they improvise on a loose rhythm part for a bit, and then Jimmy signals that they’re going into the outro by playing the right rapid fire power chord. I doubt any of that was worked out beforehand.
Other than that, I like how the bow sounds on the Tele better than how it sounds later on the Les Paul, and their lack of practicing together later while trying the same loose/tight feel didn’t always work out. So it goes.
In the whole history of the world, ever? Hang on, I’ll just check.
Fwiw, there’s a guy a few posts up who thought Plant’s performance here was a “bit lucklustre” so yeah, people don’t always get stuff.
Yeah, this one. In reality, Plant isn’t all that extraordinary a vocalist. Blues vocals aren’t very difficult; any number of people could have fronted Zep at least as well.
Freddie destroys Plant as a lead. And I’m not just talking about Live Aid.
