Tampa Calling

UPDATE 12/4/2007: What the fuck? 

Billboard.com reports on the band’s first U.S. performance since 1977.

Here’s my Led Zeppelin Ultimate Set List.

And while we “get the Led out,” here’ a rough draft of my Zep CD review:

The Soundtrack From the Film
The Song Remains the Same (Remastered/Expanded)
LED ZEPPELIN
Rhino
The original Led Zeppelin live double-album from 1976, gussied up and goosed with six previously unreleased performances including a tour-de-force of “The Ocean,” hits shelves when the band’s profile is higher than it has been in a decade. New best-of collection (Mothership), one-off reunion show (Dec. 10 in London), rumors of a world tour; it’s a good time to reassess this much-maligned-upon-release live collection. Because despite what you might have read, heard, or remember from the original vinyl, eight-track, cassette or shitty unremastered CD version, The Song Remains The Same should be mandatory listening for anyone with an interest in this primal force we call rock ’n’ roll.

Culled from three performances at Madison Square Garden in July of 1973, TSRTS finds singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham on the tail end of a massive world tour unlike anything before witnessed. While junk coursed through their veins (well, Page’s at least) and visions of tender groupies danced in their heads, Led Zeppelin seized the stage in New York City and offered an outsized display of sonic decadence — a death rattle of supreme magnitude. Ferocious but unfocused howling; vicious but self-indulgent guitar solos; erratic but awesome drumming, taut but barely audible bass and keyboard playing that’s borderline prog nausea in places.

When Plant moaned “push push” on stage in 1969, the singer sounded like he might actually be able to satisfy every damn person in the building. But by the summer of ’73, the Golden God had finally showed signs of mortality. Incapable of hitting many of the high notes, he sings in a lower register, adopting a gruff, sinister tone not heard on studio recordings. During the 29-minute version of “Dazed and Confused,” Plant quotes “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” with the conspicuous cynicism of a man who has seen the flip side of the hippie dream. Later, in the same epic number, Page wields his violin bow, drags it across his Les Paul until is sounds like wraiths swooping down from the rafters.

As for pure music merits, How the West Was Won is the definitive Zeppelin live album. But TSRTS shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s rock ‘n’ roll excess personified: mean, perverse and savage; a historic document heated by massive egos and sexual energy — even if Plant does fake an orgasm or two. 4.5 stars

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