So far Led Zeppelin have played:\'Good Times Bad Times\'"The set started with a clip from \'The Song Remains The Same\' DVD with an American news clip telling of they broke The Beatles\' attendance record for a gig in 1973 in California. Simple stage set, video screen behind the band."\'Ramble On\'"\'Ramble On\' done in extremely slow, bluesy manner, with shards of electric guitar from Jimmy Page."\'Black Dog\'"Page wearing dark shades, quite muddy sound. Crowd singing the \'ah-ah\' bits back at Plant."\'In My Time Of Dying\'"Page is playing bottleneck guitar. Plant spoke for the first time before song, saying \'Good evening\'."\'For Your Life\'"That\'s not something you get to hear often these days, Led Zeppelin giving a song its live debut."\'Trampled Under Foot\'"Before starting Plant told the crowd it was the band\'s attempt to sound like Robert Johnson\'s \'Terraplane Blues\'."\'Nobody\'s Fault But Mine\'"There are huge screen\'s dominating the O2 Arena, they split into four sometimes, goes monochrome, colour etc...quite spectacular."\'No Quarter\'"Following the song Plant paid tribute to John Paul Jones, who played keyboards and bass on the track."\'Since I\'ve Been Loving You\'"A bit of a style guide for you, all the band are dressed in black bar Page\'s who is rocking a white shirt. As for the song they gone for the epic version....very bluesy."\'Dazed And Confused\'"Settle yourselves in, we\'re expecting a ten minute version of this classic... it was. At the end of it of the song Plant told the audience \'On guitar Jimmy Page, just as he did on \'The Song Remains The Same\' DVD which was filmed in Madison Square Garden in the 70s."\'Stairway To Heaven\'"What do you think happened? Right! From the moment those opening notes rang out the whole audience went absolutely crazy. The atmosphere is electric. Afterwards Plant said "Ahmet, we did it!"\'The Song Remains The Same\'\'Misty Mountain Hop\'"Plant kicked this one off by praising the job drummer Jason Bonham has been doing, stepping into his late father\'s shoes tonight."\'Kashmir\'"Yet another epic, as this song cracks the ten minute mark. Plant introduced this one declaring \'We\'ve got people from 50 countries here and this is the 51st\'. Afterwards they left the stage to loud applause. Will they do an encore? What do you reckon..."\'Whole Lotta Love\'"... of course they come back to deafening applause. And it\'s an extended version of the old \'Top Of The Pops\' theme. Then once more the band leave the stage with a visibly emotional Plant declaring:\'Thanks to everybody. Thanks Ahmet Ertegun, this one for is Ahmet Ertegun as we remember the days when Atlantic Records was the best label on the planet!\'."\'Rock And Roll\'"Just time for one more, as after two hours the night reaches its climax, and what a stomper to go out on.
Led Zeppelin reunion: the reviewYou might think it couldn\'t possibly live up to expectation but, it transpires, the opposite is in fact true of Led Zeppelin\'s first public appearance in 19 years.They seem buoyed by the deafening roars that greet their every twitch tonight - everyone present in the O2 Arena is willing their performance to the realms of greatness. It\'s almost impossible to be subjective, to not be sucked in.It takes plant three songs before he offers a cursory "good evening". By the time they\'ve blasted through an incendiary \'Good Times Bad Times\', a dramatic \'Ramble On\' and the stop start rhythms of Black Dog\'. He needn\'t say anything.Next They launch into \'Nobody\'s Fault But Mine\' and Zep are smiling at each other, only occupying about six foot of the enormous stage. You wouldn\'t believe this is a band who haven\'t played together for so long.They do No Quarter\' and they\'re locked in as tight as if it were the 1970s. Only the close ups on the screen at the back give away their advanced years.Launch into a version of \'Dazed And Confused\' that seems to last forever but every last second is enthralling.Jimmy Page is lit up by lasers and at the song\'s climax Robert Plant yells out "Jimmy Page on electric guitar!" in a moment the resonates right back to their first heyday.\'Stairway To Heaven\' follows. Ridiculous in many ways yet it is a song that everyone present thought was fated to only be performed by dodgy pub covers bands and not again by its creators.Jimmy has the double headed guitar, bassist John Paul Jones is sat at a keyboard and Plant - contrary to the pre-gig rumours is singing beautifully.Playing this well known classic proves a shrewd move as it gently reminds everyone present just which, giant-sized rock band they\'re dealing with.The final half an hour is comprised of songs so omnipresent it\'s hard to make any sort of tangible judgement.\'Kashmir\' finishes the main set sounding incredible the band take a bow and they\'re gone.Rapturous applause follows as you might expect but its nothing compared to the sheer mania that greets the first encore song \'Whole Lotta Love\'. Not many bands have one of those, you see.The middle section veers into space rock territory any young band would be proud of and when that riff returns its well you know how it goes.Then Led Zep blast through a second encoure of \'Rock And Roll\' - paying tribute to their old mentor and the reason this concert is taking place, Ahmet Ertegun, on the way - and, well again... you know how it goes.If there were sceptics here tonight - there weren\'t but just for the sake of argument consider it - Led Zeppelin silenced them and banished any rotten memories of their shambolic Live Aid reunion.More importantly though, what they have done here tonight is prove they can still perform to the level that originally earned them their legendary reputation.We can only hope this isn\'t the last we see of them.Hamish MacBain, NME Live EditorLed Zepellin played:\'Good Times Bad Times\'\'Ramble On\'\'Black Dog\'\'In My Time Of Dying\'\'For Your Life\'\'Trampled Under Foot\'\'Nobody\'s Fault But Mine\'\'No Quarter\'\'Since I\'ve Been Loving You\'\'Dazed And Confused\'\'Stairway To Heaven\'\'The Song Remains The Same\'\'Misty Mountain Hop\'\'Kashmir\'\'Whole Lotta Love\'\'Rock And Roll\'
20 Million tried to get 20 Thousand tickets!! :shock2:
GT/BTThey played the shit out this. Unfortunately, no one bothered to do a soundcheck at all after they set up for Zeppelin and the guitar was almost non-existent. bass wasn\'t a lot better. I\'m sure the people closer to the front could hear fine, from the amps, but the sound guys fucked up the FOH. They basically did Zeppelins levels DURING the first song. - but you could tell they were on it - it fucking rocked. Hopefully the multitrack got the audio the FOH missed.RAMBLE ONSame thing. Seemed like a great version, but it was hard to hear the guitars. JPJ\'s bass riff melody part at the beginning was drown out by the "lite" drum part thundering through the arena. Again, not their fault. The sound guys got their shit together about halfway through this when they figured out they couldn\'t hear Jimmy\'s solo. Up came the guitars and it was great the rest of the show The end of the song was great!BLACK DOGWow. HEAVY.. and slow. Oh man.. these guys are going to really tear shit up tonight.. you could just tell.IMTODThe slowest, heaviest, most creeping death version I\'ve ever heard. Jimmy has become an real, seasoned, old blues player.. he slid all over the neck like he was actually dying... so MUCH feeling... people in the crowd were subconsciously swooning with him... unbelievable - and when he finished each riff, the descending slide was accompanied by JPJ, ever so lightly, DEEP and low.. sounded like they\'d sunk right into the pits of hell itself. And that;s just the opening part. When the drums came in for the first time before "well well well.." it sounded like an explosion. When they got to fast part, it seemed like Jason was right on it.. I couldn\'t hear well enough to know for sure because Jimmy\'s was wailing away like a madman... This was a very good version.FOR YOUR LIFEYAY! One of them had said they scrapped this at rehearsal - but here it is! I always wanted them to play this live - and here it is! Such a GROOVE this tune has... simple, too - bug powerful chords.. sounds great live. Bonham did a good job recreating the swagger this song has on the album. There was one part I noticed he left off that\'s a big part of the pattern - but he can\'t be expected to be a carbon copy. I though this really sounded great. Grooved, even.TRAMPLED UNDERFOOTI\'ve never been a huge fan of this song. The album version is ok to me, but not one of my favs and I have never thought much of the live versions. Holy shit. Tonight I understood the attraction. THIS ROCKED.CUSTARD PIE (Intro)I didn\'t hear this and I don\'t think it happened. It\'s possible I missed it, but wouldn\'t it be a train wreck to segue intoNOBODY"S FAULT BUT MINEcan\'t remember this at all. don\'t know why - I never left, but it may be due to the "Newfoundland Asshole". More about him later.NO QUARTEROh man. The dry ice (probably fake fog these days), the THICK, heavy tone on Page\'s riffing... JPJ\'s signature song was on the money tonight. They played the shit out of this.SIBLYIt just keeps getting better. The older they get, the better they play this. Page and Plant both knocked this one out of the park - except - Plant jumped the gun at one point and cause the band to skip an entire section to catch up with him. I think this may keep it off the DVD unless they can do some editing magic... but they covered it VERY well - right back together in about 3-4 beats - only lost a single measure, best I could tell. The song was so damn good, you\'d hardly remember the screwup, afterward, unless you were trying to for a review.DAZED & CONFUSEDFantastic. Nice to have the correct bass player playing this... they didn\'t pull any punches with this.. we got everything you\'d want from them, in a 1973ish Dazed version. When they got to the fast part, Bonham was really keeping up well - but (I think) they ran off the tracks when they went to bring it all back down to the verse again. I can\'t be sure about it, because they covered very well and they were FRANTIC - I mean NAILING that shit all the way through. Bonham was thrashing like a madman here, too... this was Led Zeppelin, on stage, at 60 years old absolutely NAILING this shit. Whatever that little bit was that happened, it glossed right over. I hope it doesn\'t keep it off the DVD because this was a great version.STAIRWAY TO HEAVENThey played it. What else is there? I thought the guitar had too much drive on it from the beginning - was very brash and abrupt - and made it lose some of the effect the song has, but Robert sang it like he really meant it. this is one of the FEW places I saw Page use his busted pinky finger. More on that later. I need to hear the tape before I can comment on the solo. It was about what it\'s always been live, as I remember.But they played it. "and the crowd went wild". When done, Robert stood with both arms outstretched and bowed, staying bowed halfway for a good 20-30 seconds, like "I did it for you, finally". And had plenty applause to soak up.THE SONG REMAINS THE SAMEwhy not? He had the doubleneck out... good version. Played very passionately, but I don\'t remember anything special about it. I was REALLY hoping they\'d drop into Rain Song afterward, but no dice.MISTY MOUNTAIN HOPThis was a crowd pleaser. Funny to hear people trying to sing along, then realize they don\'t know the words. The crowd was in a great mood, and this really was like a bit of lighthearted fuel to the fire. Went over very well.KASHMIRHoly fuck oh wow man this RIPPED. R I P P E D. I\'ve hardly ever liked the live versions of this song because they sound so thin - usually. To me. Anyway - NOBODY would say this sounded thin. This was FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Plant was Plantationing about how he\'d been told there were people from 50 countries in the audience for the show... and that this song was about the 51st country... then BOOM! it starts. Lush, thick, TIGHT. This should be a very good version on tape. Page\'s chords were really clear and tight and JPJ\'s sound wasn\'t that thin bullshit from some of the bootlegs, it was RIGHT.Then they left! Thunderous applause, cheers, seat banging, rhythmic clapping, etc.... for several minutes. I didn\'t time how long it took, but it didn\'t die down at all until right as they started walking back out and got kind of deafening! Jimmy has hi transperformance, so I know what this is gonna be..WHOLE LOTTA LOVEGroove. This was really good, but I found the tone from his transperformance to be inferior to what his LP had sounded like all night - other than that, they was great. We got the solo about like it was with P/P plant tours where the guitar is tuned down slowly while he holds his arms out.... just making a SHIT LOAD of noise, Page was.. I mean it was great.. all that sound coming from this one guy. Robert was really spending the rest of his voice here... giving it all he had since it was the end.Did a big bow, got EVEN louder applause and left again. At this point, some dumbasses start leaving... I\'m sure they felt REALLY stupid later.So the crowd isn\'t having any of this one encore shit and begins raising enough hell to make the first encore call back seem like a Yanni concert. I mean there was no mercy. For SEVERAL minutes, it just got louder and more frantic and then whole-crowd rhythmic clapping starts, just like the beginning of the old TSRTS soundtrack... but a lot longer.. gradually getting faster.. and louder and more people join in... then... with the clapping.."ROCK - AND - ROLL! ROCK - AND - ROLL!" over and over...Out they come again.. I think this is point where Jimmy said something in the mic, but he\'s always so soft I can never understand him... hopefully the 276 boots will have picked it up better.ROCK AND ROLLBonham nails the opening. I\'ve heard so many people try to play this and fuck up the accents. He was on it. Plant did the best he could do to scream this out the right way, and it was really good. Just a killer rock song... a perfect way to end the show since, after all, it HAD been a long time since they\'d rock\'n\'rolled.They finished and left again.. this time for good, we were sure. Much more applause, but by now, after calling for two encores, the audience was completely beat. The house lights came up after 2 mins or so and every one finally relented and began to leave.notes:Bow - awesome. Jimmy really did a great justice to this signature part of Zeppelin\'s live show. Green laser pyramid and everything."The Newfoundland Asshole" was this monumentally obnoxious guy in a red short and a leather jacket that read "Republic of Newfoundland" on the back - he was standing in the row in front of us, about 3 seats to the right. He was completely drunk at 6pm, before the show even began and it just got worse from there. During the show he did EVERY fucking inappropriate thing you could imagine, verbally and physically, other than show us his ass. I really thought that was coming, too. I\'m glad I didn\'t bother to tape this, as this guy would have made the recording COMPLETELY useless, especially considering how many sources we\'re going to get this week. I can\'t tell you how pissed the people right behind him were.There was hardly ANYTHING wrong with this show, other than the few things I mentioned above. You could really tell JPJ was concentrating SUPER hard and feeling the burden of driving the band this time around.Jason Bonham did better than ANYONE would have thought, even with the positive remarks about the rehearsals, he really played the best gig he\'s ever played. I\'ve never been impressed with his playing until to night. He did a VERY, very good job and would have made his old man proud. There were a few places, like solo at the end of RocknRoll - end of the show - where nearly WAS John Bonham - wailing away in the strobe lights to close the show.I couldn\'t ever see Jimmy use his broken pinky. All the screen-close-ups I noticed, he had it curled back under was playing with only the three fingers - which is AMAZING considering how well he played. The only time I saw him use it was during the Stairway solo and it seemed like it failed him... it\'ll be interesting to watch the video once it gets out. Without having seen it, though, you\'d never know he was fretting with 3 fingers - or least I cuoldn\'t tell. He was ON IT tonight.Robert did a really good job. You could tell he was pushing himself all the time... he didn\'t half-ass anything, and there were plenty Plantations here and there.JPJ was JPJ. I think his new role is the one Bonzo used to play.. he was the glue. Where JPJ used to watch Bonzo more than Bonzo watched him, Jason kept a close watch on JPJ and Page all night... you could really see the burden on JPJs face most of the show as he was in deep concentration to be sure he was spot on while Jimmy did his thing. He was JPJ - the rock. So nice to hear this music played with the correct bass player.John Bonham\'s son is a fine stand in for his Dad, - the best man for this job, easily. You\'ll have NO DOUBT once you see the show over the next few days / weeks.Tonight, Led Zeppelin flew again. If it was the last time, they\'ve left no doubt about what Led Zeppelin was.
Pete Paphides at the O2 arena, LondonBack in 1976, when Led Zeppelin were part of the musical furniture, Jimmy Page claimed that the minutes before a show were the worst. ?I always get very edgy, not knowing what to do with myself.? Lord knows, then, what he must have been feeling as the lights went down to herald a comeback far more hotly anticipated than any show Led Zeppelin played during their 12 years together. If he was nervous though, you couldn?t tell. Silhouetted by lights at the back of the stage, he gazed out behind his shades and casually dropped his hand onto six strings, playing the first chord to bear the Led Zeppelin imprint.With Good Times, Bad Times came a noise that suggested the rockers were, for a laugh, setting themselves the task of inventing heavy metal all over again. It seemed to catch everyone by surprise, including Robert Plant, who momentarily struggled to assert his vocals.At a rehearsal a few weeks ago, Plant was heard to complain about the challenges of divining a voice of a 20-year-old from the body of a 60-year-old man. He needn?t have worried. Older equipment may take a while to get going, but once the requisite valves heat up, the quality is unmistakeable. And so it turned out 15 minutes in, when a bracing round of call-and-response oh-yeahs triggered an incendiary Black Dog. Plant?s quick kick to the base of his mike stand sent it flying up into the path of his hand. Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks. It had been good before, but something of the devil seemed to get hold of them at this point. Now sans shades, Page launched into a filthy seam of swamp guitar, from which a magnificent In My Time of Dying swelled to epic proportions.Events that have so much resting on them rarely unfold with such an air of assurance. The three original members of the band and Jason Bonham, the drumming son of John Bonham, seemed relieved to be relinquishing the burden of anticipation. Their heaviosity has always been the cornerstone of their reputation but it was astonishing to see how funky they could be for a rock band. Moving to electric harpsichord, John Paul Jones offered some redress on a pile-drivingly danceable Trampled Underfoot.Bonham?s volcanic fills on Nobody?s Fault But Mine confirmed that there are some things that can be transmitted only through DNA.In a set of trusted crowd-pleasers the inclusion of Stairway to Heaven was inevitable, but the song?s ubiquity made it difficult to summon much enthusiasm for it. Perhaps it just comes down to the fact that some tunes have dated better than others ? because the moment Page and Bonham locked into Kashmir something transcendent took hold. Over a rhythm that have a way of advancing like Martian tripods, John Paul Jones billowed out chords of portent while Plant?s used his wildcat roar to the best effect of the evening.An on-stage embrace and sundry bows seemed to hint at the band?s relief. They returned for a cathartic Whole Lotta Love and a sublime Rock?N?Roll. ?It?s been a long, lonely time since I last rock?n?rolled? screeched Plant. Well, at least since he has showed this sort of fire-eyed intensity. And so, was it all for a one-off show in memory of their label boss Ahmet Ertegun? Come on. With a synergy like this going on, it would be an act of cosmic perversity to stop now.
