Time to get your head in the speaker bin of pop-cultural history for this enjoyable if truncated film about the early days of heavy rock legends Led Zeppelin – the cheerfully ridiculous joke name invented for them by Keith Moon, a play on words that is now almost invisible, like the Beatles. It’s an authorised guide that stops at the release of their second album, Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. Fans may be disappointed that the film quits before Stairway to Heaven. But they may also wonder if this arrangement gets us out of some tricky questions about the band’s later years, namely the rumours of their on-tour shenanigans and some of their more distinctive enthusiasms. There is, thankfully, no mention of Aleister Crowley.
No doubt about it, though. Once you hear the colossal opening chords to Whole Lotta Love, no power on earth will stop you nodding along. (The question of how on earth this loftily album-based band allowed that riff to be used as the signature tune for Top of the Pops is not touched upon.) The film is structured around archive clips and good-humoured interviews with the surviving members of the band; drummer John Bonham died in 1980 at the age of 32, following a history of depression and drug and alcohol abuse – another topic that the film’s early-days format avoids. His recorded voice is used, but there is no explicit mention of his heartbreakingly early death and the emotional effect it must have had on the rest of the band.
There is the legendarily priapic Pre-Raphaelite lead singer Robert Plant, with his golden curls and wailing scream; an old press headline describes the pre-Zep Plant as the “Tom Jones of the Midlands”, which hardly does him justice. One fascinating photo of him in his pomp (and no one was pompier in his snake-hipped pomp than Plant) shows him hanging out with Germaine Greer. Lead guitarist Jimmy Page was the band’s de facto leader, a brilliant virtuoso soloist and composer with a Montgomery-ish flair for command; bass guitarist and arranger John Paul Jones seems to have been the laid-back voice of reason; and then there was the mighty drummer Bonham.
The band came up as hard-working musicians. Plant and Bonham gigged with various bands, while Page and Jones were session regulars who played on Shirley Bassey’s recording of Goldfinger. Page also worked on recordings by Lulu, Donovan, the Kinks and the Who. His own breakthrough was joining the Yardbirds, the band who, in their next incarnation renamed themselves Led Zeppelin. With the help of their terrifying manager, Peter Grant, (affectionately remembered here as akin to a “mafia boss”), they secured a uniquely advantageous deal with Atlantic Records in the US, where their super-heavy sound and endless touring made them hugely popular stateside before they started playing in the UK. So they became the first British band who had to break through in their home country after they’d already conquered America.
The memories that Plant, Page and Jones give us have a great charm and warmth, with Jones recalling developing his musical talent early on by playing the organ in church. And it’s a reminder that the 1970s rock gods were war babies; all of these long-haired pagan deities have black-and-white photos of themselves in school uniforms and short trousers with mums and dads who did their best by them. Plant was going to be a chartered accountant before he went into music. Overall, this is a likable and well-researched film, but there is something unsatisfying in ignoring the band’s later stages. Perhaps Part II is in the works.
• Becoming Led Zeppelin is out now on IMAX, and on general release from 7 February
