Rock legends Led Zeppelin showed they have not lost any of their appeal, despite a 27-year break in performing, advancing years and the death of the band’s original drummer, British press said on Tuesday.
The legendary 1970s band’s one-off reunion gig at London’s O2 Arena on Monday night was hailed as the return of rock’n’roll, although clearly the old rockers’ wild party days are well behind them.
Instead of vodka and champagne-fuelled parties, the band’s only riders were apparently cups of tea and coffee.
Inevitably, the band’s most famous song, Stairway to Heaven — scourge of guitar shop owners the world over — became a stairlift in several commentaries. But all were approving.
”It was breathtaking and spine-tingling. This really is as good as popular music gets,” wrote reviewer Jon Aizlewood in London’s Evening Standard.
”Led in their old pencil,” the Sun tabloid said over a photograph of singer Robert Plant (59) and guitarist Jimmy Page (63), strutting on stage in front of 20 000 fans.
The best-selling daily’s reviewer Pete Sampson compared Led Zeppelin to the manufactured pop that dominates today’s charts.
”Their classics proved music doesn’t rock like it used to,” he added.
”Older equipment may take a while to get going, but once the requisite valves heat up, the quality is unmistakable,” the Times reviewer, Pete Paphides wrote, saying Led Zep invented rock-funk long before the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
At the Daily Mirror, reviewer Gavin Martin said: ”Page may no longer swagger across the stage, his guitar worn low like a gunslinger as he churns out riffs.
”And Plant can’t scream and strut like he did in his rock-god heyday. But the awesome power and majesty of the music was undiminished.”
The Times and the Independent pinpointed Black Dog as one of the highlights.
”Page dispensed power chords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks,” Paphides said.
”It had been good before, but something of the devil seemed to get hold of them at this point.”
The Independent‘s Andy Gill said the sound up to that point had been ”somewhat murky”, but Black Dog was where it settled down.
”Robert Plant’s call-and-response jousting with the crowd on the ‘uhh-uhh/uhh-uhh’ mid-song breakdown is one of the night’s more engaging moments,” Gill wrote under a headline: ”The Return of Rock and Roll.”
At the Guardian, Alexis Petridis wrote: ”After a tentative, feedback-scarred opener of Good Times, Bad Times, it’s difficult to believe this is a band who have barely played together for the best part of three decades.
”They sound awesomely tight.”
For many the ethereal Kashmir was the high point. ”Some tunes have dated better than others — because the moment Page and [Jason] Bonham locked into Kashmir, something transcendent took hold,” said Paphides.
”They were fantastic. Better than I expected. It was a joy and a privilege to be there,” the Daily Telegraph‘s David Cheal said.
The two-hour concert, one of the music world’s most anticipated of the year, has fuelled speculation that Led Zeppelin could reform — 27 years since they split after the death of drummer John Bonham.
”Events that have so much resting on them rarely unfold with such an air of assurance,” Paphides wrote. ”With a synergy like this going on, it would be an act of cosmic perversity to stop now.” — AFP
