Finishing up watching The Song Remains The Same here on DVD. I haven’t seen it since 1987, when I borrowed it from a girl from college on VHS.
First up, the actual film, is full of remarkable imagery, be that the focus on the crowd at Madison Square Garden in 1976, the band themselves or the interjected surreal montages that segue into the live performance of some songs.
The opening 12 minutes is as surreal as music film gets. No music, just an introduction to the band in the most bizarre way - it’s good, 70’s dark witch/gangster cult to it, Rolls Royce, dodgy brooding manager, Mafia suggestions, it’s all so odd.
It (The Song Remains The Same) widens to a performance at Madison Square Gardens in New York. Immediately I’m confused how old John Bonham looks, he would have been 26? Wow. Then you get the whole just how well they play as a band. You could argue Led Zeppelin aren’t Metal? More some kind of dark cult Rock Music? Whatever, it only takes one song of live performance to bring home what an incredible drummer John Bonham was. Plant sounds peak majestic, Paul Jones does what he does superbly and Page (problems here I know) but fuck me what an absolutely incredible guitarist, in an age of The Internet, where we all have 8 things on the go at once as a normality, Page’s guitar streaks bring solitary focus, they are that good.
Oddly mirrors of Radiohead’s Jools Holland performance in 2001 as Page seemingly conducts the sound from the soundboard towards the end. As the film ends, it plasters EXIT MUSIC across the screen, hmmmm?
I like their debut album a lot, IV also, and Physical Graffiti is a good album, the rest I do not care about and can see why in 1976 PUNK had a mission to take them down.
The Song Remains The Same, as a surreal gig film capturing a band at a peak, is freaking fantastic mind.
