Becoming Led Zeppelin (Documentary)

 

As a long-haired freak teenager in the early 70's, of course I loved the (comparative) outsider, heavy rock'n'roll like LZ, Sabbath, Deep Purple, et al. My lovely but younger wife was a teenage punk rocker who did not "get" LZ, mostly due to their jamming tendencies. I also lost some (not all) interest in these bands when I get into early punk and related genres but I listen to them more than ever these days and we had heard good things about this doc and thought we would check it out.

I am still a fan of the band, although not the fanatic that I was in my teens, and certainly appreciate their musicality although even I think they can be a bit overblown at times. But here, as the title suggests, the doc concentrates on their early days. As everyone know, Jimmy and John Paul Jones knew each other from their session work (they both work on an incredible amount of classic tunes and there are a couple of surprises - to me, at least - revealed here) and after the demise of the Yardbirds (shortly after Jimmy decided that he wanted to play in bands), these four got together from random recommendations and everything clicked immediately.

There is tons of terrific footage of early live shows, some that I had seen before (love seeing Bonham playing like a genius on a simple 4 piece kit) but a few new bits, all showing how powerful they were early on. There are also new interviews with the three surviving members (and a recorded interview with Bonham) where they all come off intelligently and affably. Page is our fave though, as he is still a huge music lover and not afraid to be a nerd about it! 

Far from all-encompassing, but fantastic for fans of the band. This ends after the 2nd album (I suppose they "became" LZ by then!) so it's all just the fun early days. Rockin'!