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Press Review: (Southern Style, May 1977) I made the mistake of reading the Swan Song Records press kit before attending last week's Led Zeppelin concert, so I can't decide which of the many possible approaches would best suit my review of the concert. I could start with the label's proudest achievement, the box-office gross (Peter Grant, the Zeppelin's Colonel Parker, is inordinately fond of proclaiming the band the best in the world and backing his claim with tabulations of gate receipts.). Or I could begin with a reference to "heavy metal music," a categorization the band's founder, lead guitarist Jimmy Page, violently eschews. There is a standard paragraph about surviving the Sixties with which I could kick off, but no. There is one tangible result of the Led Zeppelin concert, a souvenir, if you will, that is an appropriate point at which to begin.

My ears are still ringing.

It's a minor point, really, but as I write this, days afterward, even with the roar of North Florida surf plainly audible, I still have a high-frequency buzz in the eardrums that I can only attribute to the power of Led Zeppelin and their massive sound system.

I hadn't thought the group would make much of an impression on me, auditory or otherwise. After all, I'd seen them on their debut tour in '69, full of blues exuberance and old Yardbirds energy. Robert Plant even had a pubcrawler's paunch back then. I was convinced they could never top that act, especially after I caught their 1973 Tuscaloosa performance. Plant had lost his paunch and his distinctively shrill voice as well; he hit nothing but low notes that night. Page seemed preoccupied, the John Jones-John Bonham rhythm section unpremeditated. The Zeppelin was a flaccid balloon that night. I wrote 'em off.

The expectations of the self-styled rock critic are heady indeed. He or she establishes purely subjective enjoyments as benchmarks against which to judge a group's subsequent accomplishments outside his or her ken. Simply because of the lousy time I had in Tuscaloosa in '73, I'd bought but hardly listened to their sixth and seventh LP efforts, Physical Graffiti and Presence. When Atlantic Records, Swan Song's distributors, invited me to the show in Birmingham, I listened to the discs some more, but remained skeptical. Besides disappointing folks in person, the Zep had in the meantime made the cover of People magazine, a traditional augury of creative indolence. I did not, suffice it to say, arrive at Birmingham's Circus Maximus, the Civic Center Coliseum, in expectations of a good time.

So I was wrong.

The Led Zeppelin displayed virtuosity, humor, decibels aplenty and a definite desire to entertain throughout their Birmingham date, resuming their American tour ("For some reason they keep calling it the middle leg of the tour. Really!" joked Plant onstage) with high hopes for the rest of their domestic stops. If they maintain their level of excitement the rest of the way, the Zep will be well on the way to exceeding Peter Grant's wildest financial dreams.

Robert Plant's debilitating car wreck in Greece last year cast serious doubt upon his ability to perform onstage, but he was in fine fettle in Birmingham. Jiving, conversing with the audience, lecturing on the birth of the blues, Plant was the consummate host. He leaped around a lot, too belying his game leg and he sang his lungs out; not until "Stairway To Heaven," the set closer, did he lose the ability to hit the piercing high notes that are his trademark. By then, I don't think a soul in the crowd really noticed, so spellbound were they by the group's performance.

Guitarist Jimmy Page, as usual, spoke not a word, but kept the show together with his power-chorded prowess. Switching among a variety of guitars, Page proved that he is rock's premier fretmonger. Was he sloppy in places? Sure. Were his solos sharp and concise? Predominantly. It wasn't a studio situation, so he did not strive for perfection, but his spirited thudplucking suited the audience to a T-flat.

Perhaps to prove to skeptics that their mettle is more than heavy, the Zeppelin sandwiched several acoustic tones between the electric sets. Even when they lilt, the boys are loud, but it was pleasant to hear them attempt numbers like the Indian-influenced "Black Mountain Side." Best of all, the crowd did not call out for hot tunes while the electric guitars were cooling down.

Their patience was rewarded when the latter part of the set was played. Zeppelin fans seem to crave flash, power-theatrics and sheer volume, and the last four numbers fit the bill. First came John Bonham's tour-de-force, "Moby Dick," last of the great white drum solos. Modern technology has afforded Bonzo the opportunity to work synthesized percussion into the act; combined with ominous stage lighting, Bonham at the peak of the solo looks and sounds like the ancients' description of Vulcan at the forge, crafting lightning-bolts for Jupiter.

Carry the metaphor further, and contemplate Page as Zeus during the guitar solo that followed. He bowed the strings, utilized the Echoplex, laid on smoke bombs and laser beams, and still managed to play the notes correctly. Page made the cliché sound new, and what more can a rock guitarist do?

Out of the solo into an extended "Achilles' Last Stand," with Plant roused to exciting vocal heights, howling like the Furies, focusing the by-now overpowering sounds of the players. Pause for audience lullaby, then into the Seventies' classic, "Stairway To Heaven," the dynamics of which show why the Zeppelin stand apart from the heavy-metal practitioners.

It was an ideal finale: the crowd suddenly realized that the evening was indeed coming to an end and seemed determined to prevent that by clapping, shouting, whistling and screaming for an encore. Of course that always happens at rock shows, but this show had been special for the thousands who kept bellowing till the group acknowledged the pandemonium, stolled out and beat the remaining sturdy eardrums flat with the definitive version of "Rock and Roll."

-Courtney Haden (Southern Style, May 1977)