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Press Review (1): ALEXANDRA PALACE in north east London was never built to rock. The shamefully neglected building, which housed the BBC for many years before the TV centre in Shepherds Bush became a reality, sits on top of Muswell Hill like a decaying reminder of the past, and the extravagance that aristocracy demanded in the 19th Century.

It's Ally Pally now. Stripped of the famous pipe organ that once drew crowds into classical recitals, it seems destined to die a lonely death as no new use can be found for what the planners now call a white elephant.

But it breathed again over Christmas. The attendants had a handful on their hands again, and the bars and cafes were humming as twelve thousand Led Zeppelin fans – six thousand a night for two nights  - made a joyous pilgrimage up the winding roads to see Britain's first and foremost heavy rock outfit.

Neither frost and rain outside nor the cold and damp inside seemed to lessen their enthusiasm. It's been a year since Jimmy, Robert, John and Bonzo last crashed through a set in London and nothing would keep them away this time. After all, it might well be another 12 months before Zep are back.

But Ally Pally wasn't built to rock. The atmosphere inside this giant hall seemed cold and forbidding. It  would have been possible to fit twice as many fans inside but fire regulations don't permit that, so there was an abundance of space around the throng who crowded into the centre.

And for those who didn't get into the centre, seeing and hearing Led Zep was a chancy business. If you were very tall you could probably see over the sea of heads, but even then there was a diminishing  sound that flew up into the rafters and  returned as a disjointed series of echoes.

The promoters had done what they could by fixing a series of thin cloths at a fixed height up the centre of the hall, but my guess is that only about half of the fans heard the music as it should have been heard.

A shame, because Led Zeppelin are about as perfect a band as you could hope to hear. Roy Hollingworth said it two weeks ago and I said it a month ago before that: Led Zeppelin are so good at what they do that the countless others whose style is similar are left streets behind.
They played a lot of new numbers and a lot of old numbers and a couple of encores. They played the rock medley to end all rock medleys, swopping and changing numbers in mid-flight so often it was hard to keep up. They commanded respect during the dramatic pieces, and they demanded energy during the rockers.

It never struck me before Ally Pally, but during the rock medley I realised just why they are called Led Zeppelin – Led for heavy, and Zeppelin for flying. They're the heaviest flyers we've got, a fact which provided you were sitting in a good place, must have been very obvious to all at Ally Pally.
There's so much power in this quartet, whether it's the pounding riffs of "Black Dog" or "Whole Lotta Love," the swirling majesty of "Stairway to Heaven" or the deep blues of  Since I've Been Loving You," that you tend to reel back in awe.

Each member of the band does his own particular Job so well, and the whole blends to produce as near a perfect combination as I've ever seen. But the nagging sound problem must have spoilt the night for many. The Empire Pool, London's only comparable stadium to Ally Pally, would have been better as last year's Led Zeppelin shows demonstrated. It only underlines the fact that London desperately needs a large 5,000-seater hall. Almost all other major cities in the world have such a building but London - one of the greatest cities of the world is seriously lacking in this department. We're not lacking in the music though, as Zeppelin showed.  There’s still a few more concerts to go on the tour. Catch them if you can.  [-C. CHARLESWORTH, Melody Maker, Jan. 1973]

Press Review (2):  Zeppelin have always come across as one of the most finely balanced and musically able of the heavy boys and on albums three and four began, as they say, substituting craziness for licks and the results were more than pleasing.

Maybe the cold, damp floor boards of the Palace made the people fidget and chatter so much. The main arena is a desolate, stark place with two rows of steel pillars, lots of scaffolding and not much else to comfort the visitor. Zeppelin jollied up the ceiling with a huge concoction that hung in great folds and gave the feeling of being inside a World War One Zeppelin.

Robert Plant, in tiny open-chested waistcoat, jigged about and complained of the cold and never really managed to warm himself or the band throughout the evening.

Zeppelin, not content to rest on an established formula, prefer to reach out for something new every time they get behind their instruments and this has always been a major strength. What was disappointing about Friday’s show was that numbers like Since I’ve Been Loving You, Misty Mountain Hop and to a lesser extent, Stairway to Heaven have been routed and reshaped to such an extent that they are now hardly recognizable and no longer particularly attractive. You can sympathize with Messrs page, Plant, Jones and Bonham in that audiences will expect and demand Whole Lotta Love ad nausea, but in their efforts to keep themselves interested, they’ve demolished most of the appeal of the original recordings. On record, Jimmy Page combines chords and runs in a way that is rarely equaled, yet on Friday he seemed to be starting and ending his solos in all the wrong places, generally roughing up much of what the band attempted.

To be fair, his work on Dazed and Confused, Stairway to Heaven and The Rain Song (where he couples his double-neck playing with John Paul’s nifty Mellotron) was well up to anything he’s done in a studio. And he seems to have found the violin that lurks within the guitar. (It’s between the bridge and bolts and can be coaxed into the open by using a bow).

The rock-n-roll section, lodged between Whole Lotta Love and including Heartbreak Hotel, earned the usual cries for an encore but there were more than a few mutterings of disapproval as the crowds emptied on to the streets. [Andrew Tyler / Dec. 1972]