Sex, drugs, and slightly cult-like: Why Jimmy Page never wanted Led Zeppelin to be as big as The Beatles
Rose-tinted glasses have made the 1960s an era of booming kaleidoscopic colour, where the counterculture movement was in full swing, psychedelia was dripping into mainstream society, and The Beatles were, of course, the pioneering figureheads of it all.
So when we flick back through the history books, it’s easy to ask, ‘Who wouldn’t want to be The Beatles?’ They seemingly had everything: the talent, the success and the acclaim that all of us mere mortals would have dreamed of having. But their fame quickly ascended dangerous heights, and Beatlemania became exactly that: mania. There was little to no charm in being endlessly chased down streets and having your live performances drowned out by deafening screams. They, along with their music, swiftly became victims of their own success.
The break-up was oddly the tonic for this entire mindset. A new era beckoned, without The Beatles at the helm and the tightly packed obsession that existed around their band needed to break-up with it and spread around the diverse sounds that were soon to arrive in the ‘70s.
In that regard, Led Zeppelin arrived at the perfect time. Their ‘69 debut album was a dramatic introduction into the expansive new world of blues rock, which essentially ushered in a grand era of live performance.
Sprawling riffs and rolling drum beats would thunderously echo around arenas all over the world, more specifically America, where Zeppelin would pioneer a culture of music that was largely focused on the joy of live performance.
Their performances were dripping with sexuality, and became the spark for a legion of adoring fans who all harboured deep and intense crushes on the charismatic members of the band. But somehow, Zeppelin fostered a culture that never veered heavily into the mania The Beatles experienced. The band enabled their brand to be performance first, with the echoes of their blues rock influences close by, informing the crowd members that the music was a priority.
“Led Zeppelin didn’t get that kind of Beatles screaming,” Page explained, “We had a more sort of macho crowd. But I remember once in the early days of The Yardbirds, we were playing on an ice rink, and the stage was mobbed by screaming girls. I had my clothes torn off me. That’s a really uncomfortable experience, let me tell you.”
Now, there’s a troublesome outlook that Page has fostered in evaluating the difference between his band and the Fab Four. It’s an idea that was at the root of all classic rock misogyny in the ‘70s, that somehow grown men had better music taste than young women, who were supposedly only bothered by the lustful adoration of it all.
Complete nonsense, of course, as Zeppelin’s ability to step away from mania wasn’t because of the blokes gathered around the crowd. They were equally, if not more, fantasised over than The Beatles from a romantic standpoint, but they capitalised on a more musically receptive decade that was basking in the diversity of the new era. Standing on the shoulders of The Beatles, Zeppelin thrived in a world where music could do anything and go anywhere, and so, the hysteria was less frenzied.
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