I'm no dyed-in-the-wool Zep fan, but I've been listening to them a bit lately and decided to watch this concert film with its unusual added features of both fly-on-the-wall footage and highly stylised fantasy sequences, the latter focusing on the individual group members' own flights of fancy.
It starts off oddly with the group's "don't mess with me" manager Peter Grant getting to play out his own imagined scenario, re-enacting a gangland shoot-out of a bunch of ghoulish individuals before we see the group themselves en-route to their Madison Square Garden concert series in New York. There they deliver a heavyweight set of barely ten songs some stretched to almost interminable limits with extended soloing which if you're a committed fan, you'll no doubt love, but if a casual acquaintance like me, find simply interminable.
The individual segments are pretty weird too, usually inserted into the middle of one of the expanded songs, and see bassist Jones chase his wife through a dark forest on horseback wearing a fright mask, singer Plant act out a mediaeval play-let, guitarist Page climb up a never-ending hill to meet a white-shrouded ancient version of himself and drummer Bonham's more down-to-earth depictions of himself downing pints, tending his farm or racing a dragster. Make of these what you will, I personally struggled with them, with none of the four pulling off a "Ringo" between them.
Otherwise there was an obvious mis-match between the actual concert footage itself and studio close-ups filmed later on a sound stage (Jones's changing outfits are a giveaway), with elsewhere lots of flashy camera tricks conjured up to no doubt jazz up proceedings.
As I understand it, the group wasn't entirely happy with their own performances and you can certainly hear Plant for one running his voice in on the early numbers, purposely avoiding the high notes until he's well into the gig. Regarding the music itself, some of it was okay, but I just wanted the never-ending versions of "Dazed and Confused" and "Moby Dick" to just, well, end.
Strange also for the movie to be released three years after the concerts themselves, especially as by that time they'd made two further albums, including my favourite the double album "Physical Graffiti". Anyway, it is what it is, a bloated, over-pretentious movie by the biggest band in the world at the time with only some good musical moments. One thing I did enjoy was seeing the original Madison Square Garden venue in its glory, that and John Paul Jones wearing his mum's hair-do throughout!
It starts off oddly with the group's "don't mess with me" manager Peter Grant getting to play out his own imagined scenario, re-enacting a gangland shoot-out of a bunch of ghoulish individuals before we see the group themselves en-route to their Madison Square Garden concert series in New York. There they deliver a heavyweight set of barely ten songs some stretched to almost interminable limits with extended soloing which if you're a committed fan, you'll no doubt love, but if a casual acquaintance like me, find simply interminable.
The individual segments are pretty weird too, usually inserted into the middle of one of the expanded songs, and see bassist Jones chase his wife through a dark forest on horseback wearing a fright mask, singer Plant act out a mediaeval play-let, guitarist Page climb up a never-ending hill to meet a white-shrouded ancient version of himself and drummer Bonham's more down-to-earth depictions of himself downing pints, tending his farm or racing a dragster. Make of these what you will, I personally struggled with them, with none of the four pulling off a "Ringo" between them.
Otherwise there was an obvious mis-match between the actual concert footage itself and studio close-ups filmed later on a sound stage (Jones's changing outfits are a giveaway), with elsewhere lots of flashy camera tricks conjured up to no doubt jazz up proceedings.
As I understand it, the group wasn't entirely happy with their own performances and you can certainly hear Plant for one running his voice in on the early numbers, purposely avoiding the high notes until he's well into the gig. Regarding the music itself, some of it was okay, but I just wanted the never-ending versions of "Dazed and Confused" and "Moby Dick" to just, well, end.
Strange also for the movie to be released three years after the concerts themselves, especially as by that time they'd made two further albums, including my favourite the double album "Physical Graffiti". Anyway, it is what it is, a bloated, over-pretentious movie by the biggest band in the world at the time with only some good musical moments. One thing I did enjoy was seeing the original Madison Square Garden venue in its glory, that and John Paul Jones wearing his mum's hair-do throughout!