“Beam out over the planet”: The show Jimmy Page considered the highlight of his career
It’s hard for any musician to appreciate the peaks of their career at the moment. It might be fun to look back on the greatest shows that you’ve ever played and try to see what you were thinking back then, but at the time, it’s usually about trying to outdo everything that you’ve done before on every single show, album, and song. While Jimmy Page could normally spin anything into gold when working with Led Zeppelin, even he could admit when certain shows stood out above the rest.
Because for all of the great moments that Zeppelin had together, it was still a gamble to put the band together in the first place. The concept of a supergroup was still relatively fresh in everyone’s minds, and even if everyone could play their hearts out, no one knew whether things would gel or if Page made a big mistake leaving the comfort of The Yardbirds.
From the first riff on Zeppelin’s debut album, they didn’t have a damn thing to worry about. While a lot of the tunes on the first record were them trying to emulate their blues heroes, you can hear the seeds being planted for heavy metal in there as well, like the massive double-kick patterns John Bonham plays on ‘Good Times Bad Times’ or hearing Black Sabbath pinch the riff for ‘Communication Breakdown’ for ‘Paranoid’.
It’s one thing to play the tunes in the studio, but Page was much more than an album craftsman. Every part of Zeppelin’s power came from them dominating onstage, and no matter which venue they played, they made it look like an absolute shambles when they were finished, usually from Bonzo’s habit of playing the drums with his hands or Page breaking out the bow to play certain guitar solos.
Then again, Page eventually got the chance of a lifetime once he played on the Olympic stage in Beijing. While everyone had known Page more for his riffs than anything, playing for the entire world and tearing through ‘Whole Lotta Love’ reminded everyone of what a giant Page still was and the legacy he had as one of the godfathers of rock and roll.
Even with all of the Zeppelin dates and the countless classics under his belt, Page still figured this show was among the finest moments of his career, saying, “I would have to say the most profound parts of my life involve the birth of my children. But in a professional capacity, it was playing at the Olympics in Beijing. I knew that was going to beam out over the whole planet, and I loved working with Leona Lewis, who I think is astonishing. And it was a full version of “Whole Lotta Love.” Not an edited version!”
And it’s important to acknowledge the unedited version here. Whereas most televised events may have insisted that Page play a shortened snippet of the tune, the guitarist was never a singles artist, and hearing the swirling parts of the breakdown where everything gets slightly psychedelic is part of his genius, reminding everyone that he could play the studio equally as well as he could play the guitar.
Even though Page did have more eyes on him during his Zeppelin years and may have played to stadiums chanting his name, there’s still little anyone can do to top this. Because if he was playing for hardened Zeppelin fans before, this was a broadcast for the entire world.
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