“Warts and all”: why did Led Zepplin fake a live performance?
When Led Zeppelin started making music, their blend of multiple genres, including soft and hard rock, acoustic music and the blues, was revolutionary. It was already an exciting time for rock music, where nothing seemed to be off limits and innovation was at the forefront of the genre, so when the band rose to fame, it felt very appropriate and like a huge turning point for the world of rock.
The band’s impact could be felt immediately. When they first started jamming, Robert Plant was worried about overdoing it, given that he believed the sound they had stumbled upon was equal parts unique and fragile.
“I remember the little room; all I can remember [is that] it was hot and it sounded good – very exciting and very challenging,” said Plant when discussing the first time they all played together. “Because I could feel that something was happening to myself and to everyone else in the room. It felt like we’d found something that we had to be very careful with because we might lose it.”
The power of their sound didn’t just resonate within the band during that first jam; it completely took over the world. As a result, it wasn’t long before audiences from all corners of the globe were flocking to the nearest stadium where Led Zeppelin was playing in a bid to see the four of them play. This led to records being broken and stadiums becoming flooded with punters. The demand for the band live was the same as for studio albums, so it made sense for Led Zeppelin to combine the two.
In 1976, Led Zeppelin released an album/film, The Song Remains The Same. It was recorded during their three-night stint playing at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1973. The eagle-eyed among you will have likely spotted the three-year gap between the recording and release and questioned why there was such a delay. Well, Led Zeppelin quickly realised that recording a live album that could be used as a film was challenging.
The music came out fine, and if you were to listen to the album on its own, you could convince yourself you were watching the band play live. The film’s video aspect caused problems for the band, as the director they had hired to look after filming duties, Joe Massot, wasn’t cut out for the job. Upon studying his footage, it was clear he hadn’t captured much that could be used. His footage cut out randomly, and it was impossible to put something cohesive together.
Zeppelin asked Australian director Peter Clifton for help salvaging something from the footage. After going over everything, Clifton decided the only shots by Massot that could be used were the wide shots, which were taken behind the band and got the audience in view. Everything else would have to be re-shot. Of course, three-night residencies at Madison Square Garden aren’t easy to come by, so the band ended up recording this additional footage on a stage at Shepperton Studios in England, which had been decorated to resemble the one in New York.
All of the close and medium shots in the movie were recorded in England. This isn’t a secret; Jimmy Page himself admitted to it, and it becomes pretty apparent when you watch the film with a scrutinising eye.
“I’m sort of miming at Shepperton to what I’d played at Madison Square Garden, but of course, although I’ve got a rough approximation of what I was playing from night to night, it’s not exact,” concluded Jimmy Page when discussing the haphazard filming of the movie. “So the film that came out in the ‘70s is a bit warts-and-all.”
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