What was it like to see Led Zeppelin in concert? What was the band like off stage?
I am 67, and saw led Zep several times at their peak in the 70’s. It helped that I grew up in Long Beach, so the Long Beach arena which promoted every major tour was 15 minutes from my house and The Forum in LA was just 35 minutes away- that also had a full schedule of rock acts every year. But back to Led Zeppelin. Honestly- THEY SUCKED. But the next day in school, everyone was going. oh man, how great was that concert last night….blah blah blah. Nobody wanted to admit that the great Led Zep were self indulgent pretentious drunk aholes on stage. For example. They all did solos back then. So you had a 20 min bass guitar solo from John Paul Jones, a 20 min solo from Bonham- which I kind of liked, and then the god awful solo from Jimmy playing his bow. Total Rubbish. Plant was a pretty good singer every time though. He hit the notes and could wail. But over all, the self indulgence was just too much. They were not my favorite live band at all-not even in the top 10. I’ll tell you who was great back then. Queen, Bowie, ZZ-Top. Those bands were GREAT live. In fact, the best concert I ever saw was ZZ-Top- and I hated TX boogie, but the talent was amazing- and so was their sound. I also saw Pink Floyd at the infamous Los Angeles Arena concert where the LA Police department arrested over 150 people. Good show, did the whole Dark Side of the Moon album. Rush was also great. Super tight and the drumming of Neil Peart was something to behold. Bad bands- Steve Miller. A Cheap bastard who performed with minimal lights and sound- so he could save a few bucks. Aerosmith sucked pretty bad as did Humble Pie. Genesis was amazing as they were one of the first users of computerized lighting- the Vari-Lights- was mind blowing to see- plus the Clair Bros sound was pristine. Then Peter Gabriel had some great shows as well. The Security tour was out of this world. I also saw Elton John a few times- even his Hollywood Bowl show which was EPIC good. Kansas and Frampton were great-Kiss was fun to see one time, but those guys were one level up from garage bands. Except for the makeup and fire if you were into that sort of thing. Kiss was also really loud- up there with Blue Oyster Cult and the Who- both really loud bands. Beach Boys sucked live. No way to re-create the Brian Wilson sound on stage. UFO and Cheap Trick were great, and Journey featuring Neil Schon were tight. Nugent was a bore. Later on, Van Halen rocked it pretty good in the early days before drugs and alcohol killed their on stage talent. My point is, a lot of bands I saw were much better than Zep. The one thing that Zep had was the image. They were COOL. But Led Zep were not that good of a live band. In fact, they weren’t even that loud- the Who were much louder as was Kiss. As far as how they were offstage- I couldn’t tell you except for the stories. Their manager Peter Grant was a known thug to hit you without giving it a second thought. He died after becoming a junkie. Page liked very young girls- today he would most likely get in some trouble over it. Bonham seemed to be a good chap that was a functioning alcoholic- but that dude could play the drums for sure. John Paul Jones was never in any trouble as far as I heard.
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