The Ocean

On a whim, I bought the Led Zeppelin live DVD one afternoon on one of my ritual after-school visits to the CD shop in the city. I had seen the rendition of Moby Dick that was played at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970 and figured that it couldn't be a bad thing to pay 20 dollars for 2 DVDs worth more of a good band. 5 hours later and I became the prophet of Zeppelin you all know and love today.

'The Ocean' is what Led Zeppelin affectionately called the seething mass of fans they would greet as they walked on stage to play gig after gig after magical gig. It's no secret that Led Zeppelin were one of the most prolific gigging bands of their era - and with good reason. Aside from their growing underground popularity, what the band appreciated was the magic of on-stage performance. The electric spontaneity that came with the ability to move an audience at your will was a rush that was almost as exciting a trip from a colourful stimulant.

I have developed a firm belief that the mettle of a band is only truly tested in their live performances. To grind an old gear, too much of modern music places too much value on image manufacturing and clever marketing. The common indie-hipster adage is that big record companies are too focused on what constitutes good business and that in this process, musical integrity loses merit. (This, though, is part of a larger cultural phenomenon that I have a rather significant beef with. I'll maybe talk about this in another post).

All of this comes out in the wash, however, when you begin to examine the live performance of a musical act. Live and in the moment, you can see the artist for what they are, get a chance to really feel their music and, in many cases, come to appreciate their musical integrity. On-stage, musicians are aren't just performers who are showing off how well they can perform their craft, they're also entertainers and experimenters. 

  

Led Zepplin - Live and in the moment

By and large the best concerts I have been to or watched are concerts where either the band actively interacts with the audience or deviates significantly from their original source material. 

The first kind makes for entertainment that is genuine in a way which is rare amongst other forms of stage-craft. In these cases, the artist is reacting to feedback from their audience - a process which is intensely emotional for anyone who takes pride in their work. The result is that we can witness how self-effacing, comically-egotistical or entertainingly bizarre some bands and their frontmen can be. It provides us  with an entertaining window into what must be rather complex and artistically creative minds.

Some examples: Jarvis Cocker of Pulp likes to drape himself over pieces of sound equipment whilst relaying tidbits of wisdom to his audience. Linkin Park got an entire audience to sing happy birthday to a roadie at a concert that a friend of mine went to.  And Oasis... well it was fun to see two idiots from the north of England bicker and fight.

The second kind evokes a different kind of magic. Bands are able to take their original music, and not only evolve it, but evolve it spontaneously and evolve it because they are inspired by the live atmosphere and playing to a live audience. The on-the-spot nature of this improvisation and evolution speaks of a level of musical prowess and creativity that you hardly ever see in modern music. It shows a creative drive that proves that the band doesn't stagnate, even when they choose to play the same songs.  These changes take their music to an entirely different place and can drastically change your experience of the original song or piece. All you have to do is youtube concert versions of Zepplin's Dazed and Confused or Jeff Buckley's Mojo Pin to feel what I mean.

Jarvis Cocker during a recent Pulp concert - known for his on-stage antics and toying with the audience.

I love live music. It's an experience which can inject a vigour into love of a particular music that you never knew you had. To go to a concert and see performers react to you and play for you creates an excitement and a rush that sweeps you into the moment and has you dancing and singing along to their music with energy that would be embarrassing in every day life.

It's worth remembering that it should be live gigs that form the backbone for the music industry and not the other way around. Past the marketing, the promotional interviews, the auto-tune and sound production, truly good music finds its grip on us when it's laid bare and sung to our faces.

Fun Links:
Jeff Buckley - Mojo Pin (live at Chicago, audio only)
Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused (Live from the Royal Albert Hall, 1970)
Led Zeppelin - No Quarter (Live from the Song Remains the Same)
Pulp - Live at Reading 2011 (entire set)

Plant, Buckley, Bellamy and Yorke

I first came across Jeff Buckley in the musty AV studio in the attic above my high school library. A member of our school's meek (but oh so cool) Rock and Roll club had brought in  Grace as the album of the week. I found myself quite surprised that an album by someone whom I hadn't ever heard of had ended up being voted Australia's 2nd favourite album on the My Favourite Album special over on the ABC.

And to be honest, I didn't take to it quite yet. I'd spent the first half of my childhood listening to whatever pop invaded radio stations in the late 90s (let us never speak of N*Sync) and had only just begun getting into the good stuff.

It would take me about 3 years to come full circle, hear the album being played in a music shop and buy it on a whim. Several playthroughs and many hours of internet research later, I found myself quite profoundly depressed that he wasn't able to do more. And in defiance to those who say that his music and legacy has been hyped up as a fad, I do honestly believe he was about to give so much more to music.

It wasn't until I started to try to sing Lover You Should've Come Over that I realised how much of his vocal mannerisms matched that of another one of my heroes - Robert Plant. Listening to and playing more music, I ended up seeing how Robert Plant,  Jeff Buckley,  Matt Bellamy and Thom Yorke represent a beautiful sense of connectivity as strands of music through time were tied together into points, from which creativity could be woven into some fairly spectacular songs and albums.

Plant, Buckley, Yorke and Bellamy

Before I got into Buckley, I was (and still am) a massive Zeppelin nut. I still believe that they are the greatest rock band, ever. Once I really started obsessing over Jeff Buckley, reading that Physical Graffiti was his first ever album may have sent me into erratic fanboy convulsions.

If you dig a little deeper though, you start to see how much Led Zeppelin and their whole musical mantra pressed themselves upon Buckley's work and style. The extended release of Buckley's EP Live at the Sin-e contains a cover version of Night Flight where, as my musically superior friend so aptly put, he "out-Plants Robert Plant". The vocal acrobatics, rising flourishes and long sustains manage to take the music to an entirely new place - and yet, like going to an old friends house or hanging out in your favourite park, it still retains a smokey and distinctive blues flavour.

That flavour is a large part of what makes Led Zeppelin so mesmerising. They took music from all around them -  the Blues, Folk, Psychedelia and Rock 'n' Roll - and not only managed to pull all different genres off individually well, but also combined them and took them into an entirely new place. Zeppelin are seen as one of the main players in giving birth to Progressive Rock and with good reason - they did things with the music around them that no one had ever thought to do before. Listen to all the different recordings of Since I've Been Loving You, and you'll start to get what I mean.

It's this kind of synecdoche that exists in music that Jeff Buckley captured so well. Buckley took the Zeppelin, The Blues, Bob Dylan, Vocal Jazz and even a little Edith Piaf and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and combined them into one big melting pot of musical creative fun. When I dug deeper and found out about all these influences, it made Buckley's music much more poignant and fascinating.

When you listen and read further, you unconsciously begin to dissect where certain music comes from and start to see how the fabric of music over time converges into points, like Led Zeppelin and like Jeff Buckley.

Where do Matt Bellamy and Thom Yorke sit? They sit for Jeff Buckley where the successful and creative progressive rock bands of today sit with respect to Led Zeppelin. There's no denying that both of these quite talented singers take a lot of inspiration and cue from Jeff Buckley. Both of them have said in their interviews that Jeff Buckley fundamentally changed the way they tried to vocalise. Thom Yorke said that in an interview that he saw Buckley perform right before recording Fake Plastic Trees - a fact you can most certainly hear in the original studio recording.

Sure, both singers have evolved since the days when Jeff Buckley was large and when they both first came across him. But that's the point. From a point of musical clarity that someone like Buckley or a band like Zeppelin is able put forward, artists are able to take and put forward into their own styles and make their own good music.

Sometimes, when the night is quiet and I sit lit by the glow of my computer, I find myself quite upset that Jeff Buckley died the way he did.

To good music.

Fun Links:
Led Zeppelin's original 'Night Flight'
Since I've Been Loving You (Madison Square Garden '73)
Fake Plastic Trees (Glastonbury '03)