The Boys In The Band: Led Zeppelin members (L-R) Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones attend ... [+]
If there's one rock set that has a shot at boosting the listener up and out of the quotidian miseries of this pandemic, be they financial, familial, or simply spiritual, the set that would have a good shot at doing that would be one including a few Zeppelin tracks, say, "Ramble On," "Dazed and Confused," and the Zeppelin-plus-Willie Dixon classic, "Whole Lotta Love," not to mention the meta-anthem "Stairway To Heaven." On cue, then, the surviving three of the band, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones, will ride to the rescue this weekend — beginning May 30, at 3 p.m. ET — with a livestream of their classic 2007 London tribute concert "Celebration Day on the very spry Zeppelin Youtube channel.
The livestream will be made available for free on May 30 and June 1 as well.
Some crucial background: "Celebration Day" was a 2007 London benefit concert built to honor the then-recently deceased legendary producer, Ahmet Ertegun. At the time, Led Zeppelin hadn't performed live, as a band, for twenty-seven years. Drummer John Bonham had died in the interim, and the band quickly drafted his talented son, Jason Bonham, to replace his father, and the rehearsals in Shepperton began.
The concert, held at the O2 Arena, was a resounding success, and although Led Zeppelin's sound and film crews were careful in their work, the mastering and mixing of the resulting live album and the editing of the film — a "massive" project, according to Page himself — took five solid years. Celebration Day, the album and the concert film, premiered in 2012 to stratospheric reviews. Debuting on Billboard at No. 9, the album went gold or platinum in some 15 countries and went on to sell 1.8 million copies globally. The film, at 124 minutes, directed by Dick Carruthers (who directed the Stones' Bridges To Babylon video), seems short at that length.
Bluntly put, this gripping concert film shows the three original Zeppelin founders and the younger power-drummer Bonham scion at their very best. If any set has a chance to blow out the lockdown blues, Zeppelin's fresh, joyous 17-song performance on the Celebration Day stage will do the trick.
