Old c-cassette of mine that has Led Zeppelin goodness. Though I suspect it is not the very first copy I had. Some decorational work practiced on this one.
Led Zeppelin was one of the bands that burst my 80s pop music bubble I was enjoying as a kid and made me realize how amazing and different music was done already in the 60s (that was not the Beatles). Led Zeppelin’s first album would be without a doubt one of my picks to take with me on a desert island (only now I learned where that concept originates from, by the way).
Yes, some are ready to point out they copied a lot from other blues and folk songs (I made a track list of some of them on Tidal a years ago), but the impact they made to the rock music scene by crafting their influences into their own sound is hard to deny.
So it doesn’t come as a surprise I went to see ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin‘, a new rock documentary that explores what the band members were doing before forming the legendary band and continues until the release of their second album, by then becoming the biggest band in both the US and UK.
I read beforehand that the documentary had some great live concert footage and while it is true (I couldn’t help but just grin ja nod happily along some of them), most of the footage is familiar from previous films like their awesome DVD live concert release and a quick check reveals a lot of that video material is also available on music streaming services these days.
The interviews themselves were very soft, safe and self-praising. They did give away some nuggets of information I didn’t know before, but on a whole it was pretty promotional stuff. It is an official documentary, after all.
It did drag a bit towards the end too and some songs were even played twice. Still, worth the watch for a fan like me, though newcomers might be left a bit underwhelmed it just stops after their breakthrough.
Small theatre rant
I must mention that I usually go watch movies that are not in Finnkino‘s theatres due to their annoying practice of showing 15 minutes of trailers and commercials before the main feature. I made an exception here, thinking that their sound system would maximize the goodness of the documentary, but it wasn’t really that exceptional to justify it.
Even as I intentionally arrived to the screening ten minutes late, I still had to go through a few tedious trailers and commercials I couldn’t block or skip. A good reminder at least why I prefer smaller theatres that go straight to the point.