by BRIAN GIFFIN
FORTY five years after they played their last, the name Led Zeppelin still resonates an aura of power and mystique.
A band that walked like gods through the 1970s, whose second album dethroned the Beatles on the British chart, then went on to outsell both the Stones and Elvis in the US a few years later, and whose fame and excesses became as mythologised as much as their music. Their influence on modern music cannot be underestimated, but their story has so often been exaggerated, even by people who were close to the band.
Becoming Led Zeppelin readdresses much of that with a focus on the band’s formative period, before they became 70s rock behemoths. Written and directed by Bernard MacMahon, the film uses the standard instruments of rock documentary but is informed by this filmmaker’s previous work on early 20th Century recorded music, painting a picture of Led Zeppelin that has been forgotten, that of an earnest group of creative young men with a dream of making music.
Drawing exclusively from interviews with Page, Plant and Jones, Becoming Led Zeppelin is told from their point of view, without intrusion from critics, fans and other music identities, as they react to ancient footage and a long-forgotten recording of John Bonham with warmth, joy and astonishment. Page beams and Plant almost wipes a tear from his eye as they hear Bonzo’s words for the first time, finally brought to light almost 50 years after his death.
Don’t look for the excesses of the mid-70s here. You will hear “Communication Breakdown” quite a bit as they unleash shock and awe on late 60s Britons, and spellbinding early live clips of “Dazed and Confused” and “Whole Lotta Love”, but you will also see an insightful film that presents its subject in a warm and human manner. Through MacMahon’s lens, tracking them from the earliest beginnings as session players and wandering teen rebels to their triumphant homecoming show at the Royal Albert Hall in January, 1970, the audience is presented with Led Zeppelin as a portrait of a group of young, talented and ambitious men about to embark on one of rock’s wildest journeys. It is a truly inspiring one.
