Review: Led The Good Times Roll

Last weekend Led Zeppelin played a couple of concerts in sleepy Montreux. I saw both shows. Ask any of the 4,000 fans who came from as far afield as Germany, France and Italy and they’ll tell you straight: Zep knocked spots off their many rivals with the ease of true professionals. They’ve been in the game too long to let fashions worry them.

Zeppelin are a tremendous live force. They’ve lost none of the energy that characterizes a band who need to work to gain recognition, but the energy has matured into a confidence that allows them to spring off into spontaneous directions during their shows.

A nod, a wink, a drum roll or a wave of a fretboard and Zeppelin can turn a number back on its heels into songs totally unexpected. Who would imagine, for example, that Whole Lotta Love could end up as Heartbreak Hotel? It can and it does when Zeppelin fly.

But we’ll start at the beginning: Both shows – on Saturday and Sunday – were sellouts, a fact which seems superfluous  to mention, but have to remember Zeppelin haven’t been around these parts lately. And there was a minimum of advertising.

Swiss promoter, Claude Nobs, a man who has brought so much contemporary music to Switzerland, was in London last week to tie up the deal with Zeppelin’s management, and the group have a soft spot for Claude.

Montreux is a wonderfully peaceful town, nestling by the side of Lake Geneva in the shadow of huge snowcapped mountains. It’s a picture postcard in real like – so what better place than here for Zeppelin to warm up for a possible British tour at the end of the year?

The town was deserted on Saturday morning, but the streets gradually filled during the afternoon until the area around the Casino was tight with fans. They’d come from all over Switzerland and from even further afield. They packed the hall a full half-hour before the concert was due to start, and they built up a hot sweaty atmosphere that anticipates a certain feeling that something is going to happen. It happened, all right.

It happened shortly after Nobs announced – in English – that Led Zeppelin were the greatest rock and roll band in the world, a description taken for granted by many, but which suits only a few. That night Zeppelin deserved the title.

Messrs Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham ran on and zipped into their music with no hesitation. Three straight rockers open the proceedings – Rock and Roll, Black Dog and Over the Hills and Far Away, but notice how the music flows from the group naturally instead of being forced.

Misty Mountain Hop flows into Since I’ve Been Loving You without a stop – a complete change of rhythm and mood – that must have taken hours to perfect, and it’s in this bluesy track where Page excels.

It’s a well known fact that he has the technical ability to play better than most, but the feeling comes out here as well. And Plant’s tortured vocals tear into the number that must be one of the best they’ve ever produced. From here the set builds and builds. There’s a new number, Dancing Days and there’s the acoustic break for the stomping Bron-Y-Aur Stomp where Page’s skills are given yet more rein.

They move into an overture (The Song Remains the Same / Rain Song) with classical overtones, a sort of orchestral piece where John Paul Jones’ organ seers above the echo effects of Page’s guitar and John Bonham strikes his kettle drum to add a pounding drama to the piece. It’s not so much a number as a chunk of music designed to build into a cacophony of sounds.

Dazed and Confused is the next step up Zeppelin’s ladder and their current version lasts well over 20 minutes. It features Page with violin bow and echo effects which only goes to underline the man’s mastery with the guitar.

It’s Page’s trademark to swop plectrum for bow, and the effect is stunning, at the first hearing yet striking on transformed from larger than life numbers into basic rock and roll.

Stairway to Heaven follows and here Page uses a double-necked guitar to bring out the emphasis of another Zep spectacular. It’s another builder that climbs so high one wonders how it can be followed. The answer is simple: Whole Lotta Love, the Zeppelin anthem that must rank as the best known hard-rock of all time.

Here the climax comes, because here Zeppelin are doing what they revel in. They’ve proved themselves with the complicated, sophisticated numbers and here the fun starts.

Whole Lotta Love moves through a brief history of rock and roll, with Robert Plant taking his audience through the inspiration of Zeppelin and amateurs alike: Elvis Presley.

Remember “Let’s Have a Party”? Zeppelin haven’t forgotten, their version sounds remarkable like the original. Remember “I Need Your Love Tonight”?  Zep do. Each number flows at the drop of a hat, and you get the impression that this medley is going on forever. Remember “Heartbreak Hotel”? Jimmy Page hasn’t forgotten those licks and he can reproduce them as easily as Robert Plant remembers the words.

Eventually it has to end and the closing Lotta Love riff is still echoing around the hall as the exhausted band leave the stage. Ten minutes clapping provokes an encore – Heartbreaker with that inimitable little guitar solo in the middle that Page throws at the audience using his left hand only.

Sunday’s concert at Montreux followed the same pattern of Saturday’s, and if anything, was better for the experience of the previous day. (C. Charlesworth, MelodyMaker, Nov. ’72)

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POP magazine excerpt (Google Translation): For over two hours, almost 2,000 Zeppelin fans from all over Europe have been waiting in the "Pavilion" from Montreux, which is filled to capacity. Meanwhile, the Led Zeppelin crew is kept under strict surveillance backstage. Again they want to deny us entry. But Robert Plant recognizes the importance of our mission and welcomes us generously for some "small talk". Robert: "We've been traveling all year now - America, Japan, Australia - and in between, we recorded our fifth album, which is expected to be released by the end of this year, but possibly not until the beginning of next year. Hopefully you can see that there was no room for Europe and England in our diary. But we will come - in March we start our big European tour. Montreux has become a tradition for us. We play here every year. There is such a relaxed atmosphere. In addition, the audience is always fantastic."

Deafening noise as organizer Claude Nobs finally announces the 'Heissersenthen'. Robert, Jimmy, John Paul and John enter the stage - in gestures and facial expressions quite the rock heroes, as they are worshiped. A short tuning of the instruments - then they start. Rock and Roll, Black Dog and Over The Hills - three zeppelin standards. And the audience is racing. Although Robert Plants voice goes down in the sound mashed by the soundman extremely poorly controlled, broken by annoying whistling of the microphones. Although Jimmy Page too often grabs the strings a bit. And although "Since I've Been Loving You" in the inexactness of the Zeppelin'schen game no more than as you know it from the plate-Bluesiger highlight of the work of Led Zeppelin can be seen. "Misty Mountain", a new song called "Dancing Days" and the "Bron-y-Aur" recited with acoustic guitars are still to be desired. Only when Jimmy Page picks up his violin bow for "Dazed And Confused" and begins to work on the guitar in a virtuoso manner does a bit more mood come up again. This is followed by a fantastic version of "Stairway To Heaven", where Jimmy Page lives up to his reputation as one of the greatest guitarists with a two-necked guitar.

Slowly the sound has changed. The individual instruments, Plants partly also as an instrument continued voice sound balanced and perfect. "Whole Lotta Love" is called. The mood reaches its climax as Robert Plant begins to give a brief outline of rock'n'roll, pointing people to Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin's great inspiration. The 20-minute version of "Whole Lotta Love" is rewarded with a ten-minute ovation, which moves Led Zeppelin to play one more encore. In the first half the concert was mediocre - the sound was not right. On the other hand, in the last half-hour of the two-string concert, Led Zeppelin performed well on average, the way they are used to.

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FOUR THOUSAND ENTHUSIASTS FOR TWO CONCERTS POP

[Google Translation] Led Zeppelin when the machines have a Led Zeppelin soul. This is the curious name of a group that has been starring for several years. A group as current as the airship is out of date. A group that knows perfectly where they are going and therefore has nothing of a balloon delivered to the whims of Eole. But this is a machine, as impressive as a zeppelin. A machine to make the crowds vibrate, with good music.

This is why the two concerts on Saturday and Sunday at the Montreux Pavilion attracted four thousand enthusiastic young people (before, during and after). Two very good concerts. For the public, it was an opportunity to vibrate once again, of course, but also to measure the progress made, since August 1971. In this formidable basket of crabs that is the industry of the pop music, it is difficult to maintain for a long time, at the top some famous groups succeed in remaining faithful themselves (Stones), others fail for not having known how to evolve (Iron Butterfly), some disappear simply, from on their own (Beatles) or not (Hendrix).

Led Zeppelin is still here. And, the outcome of the concert we attended, it is possible to think that the group will long remain at the top. The reason is that it is led by a man who is as brilliant a musician as a fine tactician. Because, if the evolution is clear, it is absolutely not brutal, very subtle on the contrary.

Led Zeppelin remains the great master of hard rock a violent, square music, simple rhythm (but not simplistic), whose power, the persuasive force are even more impressive .  It is that the technique is even more developed, that of the musicians and that of the amplifiers.

It is that the arrangements are even more elaborate, Led Zeppelin leaves nothing to chance, we could verify by noting that the hits and titles that will appear on the next album are technically the same water. The heated themes constitute the frame of the concert at the beginning to create the climate, the end to thank the standing crowd, and several times during the two hours (without intermission). But they have something else.  Led Zeppelin knows how to be more and better than a machine.

Several acoustic pieces, an incursion in the progressive music that allows Jimmy Page to succeed a dazzling demonstration, with the help of a bow to play the guitar another in the blues, another still in country. And it is once again very successful Led Zeppelin's music then takes a thousand facets and requires more attention to capture the nuances and the great beauty. The audience (remarkably receptive) enters the game but it is not always easy and the attention of some relaxes. The skillful Jimmy Page knows that a boost and John Bonham resumes, hitting like a congregation of the deaf on his cases. John Paul Jones puts the overdrive bass, Robert Plant martyr-ises his vocal cords.  

Led Zeppelin made an even better impression than in their last appearances Montreux. The overall performance is no longer the only element of seduction. If Jones and Bonham are content (which is already interesting) to be the good accompanists they have been for a long time, their companies have a bigger register. Robert Plant is always a fervent adept of what might be called the aesthetics of the cry, but his technique is refined, his voice responds to the smallest solicitation, so much so that he is also remarkable in the rocks only in the wiser . And he does little less, which allows him to better dose his efforts and not to spurn. But if it does less, it's mainly because Page is currently in the spotlight. He is a great guitarist, nobody has ever disagreed.  His solos have nothing of style exercises. His maturity is such that he focuses on his speech, anxious only to ensure that his ideas do not go faster than his fingers.

Sensitivity, lyricism (more or less content depending on the pieces), inspiration, humor, conciseness. It is Jimmy Page first that we owe the magnificence of these two Montreux concerts - shown without striking a blow that machines can also have a soul and a heart. [L’est Vaudois / October 1972]