Becoming Led-Zepellin * * * *

 

And to think they all turned down respectable steady jobs ... for this!

Actually the title says it all, so if you're looking for a complete history of the band, this isn't it.  The film virtually concludes after their second album.  You're not going to find "Stairway to Heaven", or the "Immigrant Song" here.

Most Led Zeppelin fans are aware that the band came out of The Yardbirds, that Jimmy Page knew John Paul Jones through session work and that Robert Plant and John Bonham had known each other through various bands, before the four of them came together through happy circumstance.  

Much of the film is made up of  quite charming interviews with the three living members now in their late seventies. The producers also found a previously unreleased interview with the long since deceased drummer John Bonham.

I must say Page, Plant and Jones are all looking pretty good considering their intense backgrounds.  It's almost an advertisement: debauched living as a rock band is good for you.   

Or perhaps it was that anchor to normality, which they fondly speak of, that got them through?  Bonham, Jones and Plant speak respectfully of their wives and their family lives. Just like any loving family man they talk of their sadness of being separated as they toured. Each of them show family photos and pictures of their wedding days.  Page was the only single man. 

The background of each of the members is actually quite interesting and a reminder of an England that was.  Each of them speak of  how close they had become to taking the safer and more conservative path: Page and Jones might have been anonymous comfortably paid session musicians, and I guess we'll never know what sort of  an accountant Robert Plant would have made, (what a loss to the institute of chartered accountants!) It's a lot of fun listening to them talk of their past in a generous and open way. 

On the other side you'll be treated to a lot of footage never seen before of them playing live. Some of it remastered.  And you'll appreciate that much of it features Led Zepellin playing whole songs and not just snippets.

They admit to nothing of their notoriety and neither are they asked about it, which is an interesting approach by director Bernard McMahon, but in a way it reminds us of what really matters - the music, which  to this day remains some of the most powerful and exciting examples of rock ever.