Led Zeppelin Live - The Ultimate Concert Experiences When people talk about Led Zeppelin live, they’re covering a lot of exciting, different territory! First, there’s the actual Led Zeppelin concert performance. People I’ve met who were lucky enough to see the band live described their concerts as “life-altering”. That’s a very powerful experience worth examining. What was so special about Led Zeppelin and the band’s music? Some say the sound hit you like a tidal wave. Others found the band’s improvisations made the music unpredictable. In the late ‘60s when Led Zeppelin and other bands toured, the focus was always on the music. Audiences back then didn’t expect the light shows, laser effects, video backdrops and other pyrotechnics now so integral to live concerts. I interviewed a seasoned music reviewer who was totally blown away when Jimmy Page started bowing his guitar during Dazed and Confused. He’d never heard or seen anything like it! So innovative musical theatrics were part of the appeal. The Live Experience Captured ForeverSecondly, Led Zeppelin live also refers to both the official and unofficial or bootleg tapings and recordings of the band’s live concert performances or perhaps even their studio sessions. Taping live performances – whether for personal pleasure or for selling and marketing the records, CDs, MP3s, tapes, DATs, etc. that result - is a violation of copyright law. However, it is not illegal to collect these bootlegged recordings.
If Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz artists hadn’t been bootlegged live at the Cotton Club, we might never have heard of them! Led Zeppelin’s first boot was their September 4, 1970 concert at California’s Inglewood Forum: Live on Blueberry Hill. Bootlegs Are Going MainstreamThe recordings or bootlegs that capture Led Zeppelin live provide fans and scholars of their music with priceless information of historical value. Even the record companies are waking up to this. Witness the recent official releases of live material. The reason that bootlegs are illegal in the first place is that the bootleggers profit from the artists’ intellectual property. The performers aren’t able to collect the royalties to which they’re legally entitled. However, even the musicians of Led Zeppelin have come to appreciate the historical value of bootlegged material. In the January 1998 issue of Guitar World magazine, Editor-in-chief Brad Tolinski interviewed Jimmy Page. Tolinski asked what surprised him most in “dusting off the BBC Sessions”. Jimmy said that comparing different variations of a single song was most exciting. The evolution from one performance to the next was “like looking at a diary”. Led Zeppelin’s Musical EvolutionI’ve been collecting official recordings and boots of Led Zeppelin live material for decades. Like Jimmy Page, I’m fascinated to hear how a song like Dazed and Confused can progress from being four minutes long to beyond half an hour. How can a performer mentally conceptualize such complicated musical ramblings? What are the influences that inspire him? Even more amazing, how do the other musicians in the band manage not only to follow along, but contribute their own twists? Those who attended Led Zeppelin's concerts tell me that it was uncanny how close and tight the band’s four musicians always were. Each member was technically proficient yet all four were masters of improvisation. If you never saw Zep in concert, the next best thing is to catch the super group on DVD. The only way to understand the complicated musical evolution of Led Zeppelin’s songs is to examine their live material. So bookmark this page and come back often as we explore the netherworld of boots!
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