I wonder if the seventies was the last decade in which the live album could become iconic. If they were from contractual obligation Hot August Night and Woodstock cast gigantic shadows o'er the record stacks o' living rooms of the greater first world. Frampton Comes Alive felt like a debut album; no one seemed to have heard of him until that moment and his first hit single in Australia was a live track. I hated The Who's Live at Leeds for wasting a whole side on covers of the campiest old early rock songs but it retains a legendary status. Enough bands played the Budokan in Tokyo and released an album whose title ended with "at the Budokan" for the avid collector to create a series of them. Cheap Trick scored a hit from theirs with I Want You to Want Me, screaming fans only heightening the neo bubblegum to infection. And so on with big album chart bullets from Wings, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Bob Seeger, ACDC and many more. It seemed that a band's discography required a live album. Who better than the decade's no. 1 ticket (no rivals) but when it came out The Song Remains the Same didn't feel quite right.
First, it was sold as a soundtrack. The concert film would come out a year after the record and there were infuriating discrepancies in the set lists of the two media.
Second, because of the above, it came to us well past its time. The gigs were from 1973, in promotion of the then new Houses of the Holy album which, along with the rest of the set, sounded dated in the time of Physical Graffiti and Presence.
Third, the playing and singing are nowhere near as powerful as on the studio albums. Plant's voice has had its post IV drop and he can't scream things like Rock and Roll with that searing angle grinder force. But there isn't much in the way of post IV material here.
Dazed and Confused goes for a side of vinyl. It's infamous around the school. Even the girls know about it. It sounds like a mess. Decades later, hearing it on cd I realise why to a detail I didn't at the time I listened on my cassette. The edits in the mammoth track to get it down to fit on to an LP side are clunky and unignorable.
The big celebration that seventies live albums were didn't touch this record. It was old and sub standard. Nevertheless, we lapped it up and cried out "does anyone remember laughter?" as Plant ad libs in Stairway to Heaven at any opportunity. That was actually an interesting thing to try with teachers and it was telling to see which ones recognised it (disappointingly, three PE teachers and a maths teacher and not the hip Mr Symonds who took us for English).
I could doze to it very pleasantly afterschool. I'll admit to liking the extension to Whole Lotta Love with the rockabilly incursions and Plant's cheekiness. But I got closest to two songs I didn't know from albums because they (along with one other) were from Houses of the Holy. The title track is a barnstormer and features some forceful and thrilling rhythm guitar on the 12 string from Page who remains an unsung master of both. The Rain Song goes on but it really is moving and as with Song Remains the Same, Plant's vocal is very strong. The big section toward the end really thunders here. I'll go into more detail on this and its importance in the blog on Houses of the Holy but this was as close to having the thrill of new material as we could get until the last albums came out.
Also, it would have to do until the film came out. As a fourteen year old I loved the movie and, though I saw it a few times, didn't really notice how goofy the fantasy sequences were. Page's is the only one that feels like a real movie. It happens during the dark and psychedelic instrumental section of Dazed and Confused and, though it doesn't really seem to mean more than a very little, it does offer the non live footage moments a feel of the mystique surrounding the band. I'd add John Paul Jones's section as well but after an intriguing start of a sinister of horsemen in eighteenth century dress and warped masks riding through a foggy night it just goes nowhere.
This can be enjoyable still to leave on but the sense of compromise that is often audible and the strange and often embarrassing film that came of it cannot elevate it beyond this. It sits back there in the seventies along with my school uniform and the RAM magazine reprint of the 1977 US tour that lumbered with excess.
Page later went through the best of the live material he could find and put it together from as few shows in the same era that he could find and produced How the West Was Won. I bought that on DVD-Audio. It does feel like a live album and plays through everything the band was capable of and presented in high force. It's a masterpiece. Add to this the Led Zeppelin DV, which gathers some great rarities as well as some richly rendered concerts as completely as possible. The band's most celebrated incarnation (as a live act) has now been served perfectly. The Song Remains the Same received a more respectful treatment with the addition of some missing songs and a few that weren't on the LP or the film. It can't compete with the later releases but I'll still smile to think of this oddity that was both of and below its time.
One recollection from the time is of Wayne and I missing out on seeing Star Wars and deciding on what to do instead. We were being chaffeured by his sister Carol and her friend (name unremembered but female). When I suggested we all go and see Song Remains the Same at the Warrina. The two women showed instant disgust and eventually they drove us to my place and dropped us off there to pick Wayne up after they came back from wherever they went. I did eventually see Star Wars and the story of my galloping disappointment with it is known to all who know me. And as silly as Song Remains the Same gets I would still rather sit down in front of it than watch Star Wars again. But all of that was moot as that year saw me slowly closing the door on this side of music as lifestyle and going through another. And it wasn't the Out Door.
Third, the playing and singing are nowhere near as powerful as on the studio albums. Plant's voice has had its post IV drop and he can't scream things like Rock and Roll with that searing angle grinder force. But there isn't much in the way of post IV material here.
Dazed and Confused goes for a side of vinyl. It's infamous around the school. Even the girls know about it. It sounds like a mess. Decades later, hearing it on cd I realise why to a detail I didn't at the time I listened on my cassette. The edits in the mammoth track to get it down to fit on to an LP side are clunky and unignorable.
The big celebration that seventies live albums were didn't touch this record. It was old and sub standard. Nevertheless, we lapped it up and cried out "does anyone remember laughter?" as Plant ad libs in Stairway to Heaven at any opportunity. That was actually an interesting thing to try with teachers and it was telling to see which ones recognised it (disappointingly, three PE teachers and a maths teacher and not the hip Mr Symonds who took us for English).
I could doze to it very pleasantly afterschool. I'll admit to liking the extension to Whole Lotta Love with the rockabilly incursions and Plant's cheekiness. But I got closest to two songs I didn't know from albums because they (along with one other) were from Houses of the Holy. The title track is a barnstormer and features some forceful and thrilling rhythm guitar on the 12 string from Page who remains an unsung master of both. The Rain Song goes on but it really is moving and as with Song Remains the Same, Plant's vocal is very strong. The big section toward the end really thunders here. I'll go into more detail on this and its importance in the blog on Houses of the Holy but this was as close to having the thrill of new material as we could get until the last albums came out.
Also, it would have to do until the film came out. As a fourteen year old I loved the movie and, though I saw it a few times, didn't really notice how goofy the fantasy sequences were. Page's is the only one that feels like a real movie. It happens during the dark and psychedelic instrumental section of Dazed and Confused and, though it doesn't really seem to mean more than a very little, it does offer the non live footage moments a feel of the mystique surrounding the band. I'd add John Paul Jones's section as well but after an intriguing start of a sinister of horsemen in eighteenth century dress and warped masks riding through a foggy night it just goes nowhere.
This can be enjoyable still to leave on but the sense of compromise that is often audible and the strange and often embarrassing film that came of it cannot elevate it beyond this. It sits back there in the seventies along with my school uniform and the RAM magazine reprint of the 1977 US tour that lumbered with excess.
Page later went through the best of the live material he could find and put it together from as few shows in the same era that he could find and produced How the West Was Won. I bought that on DVD-Audio. It does feel like a live album and plays through everything the band was capable of and presented in high force. It's a masterpiece. Add to this the Led Zeppelin DV, which gathers some great rarities as well as some richly rendered concerts as completely as possible. The band's most celebrated incarnation (as a live act) has now been served perfectly. The Song Remains the Same received a more respectful treatment with the addition of some missing songs and a few that weren't on the LP or the film. It can't compete with the later releases but I'll still smile to think of this oddity that was both of and below its time.
One recollection from the time is of Wayne and I missing out on seeing Star Wars and deciding on what to do instead. We were being chaffeured by his sister Carol and her friend (name unremembered but female). When I suggested we all go and see Song Remains the Same at the Warrina. The two women showed instant disgust and eventually they drove us to my place and dropped us off there to pick Wayne up after they came back from wherever they went. I did eventually see Star Wars and the story of my galloping disappointment with it is known to all who know me. And as silly as Song Remains the Same gets I would still rather sit down in front of it than watch Star Wars again. But all of that was moot as that year saw me slowly closing the door on this side of music as lifestyle and going through another. And it wasn't the Out Door.
No comments:
Post a Comment