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The Internet Vs. Zeppelin Bootlegs

by Brett Milano on January 4

By now anyone with a good internet connection who knows where to look should have seen or heard Led Zeppelin's reunion show from last month: Videos of the highlights are up in the usual places, and the audio of the entire show can be found on your favorite illicit download sites (don't ask us where those are). Internet business as usual, and probably no skin off Zep's back: They're already gearing up for a tour that will likely be the biggest moneymaker of the coming year. (If you've been following the rumors, the latest is that Dave Grohl is coming in to play drums).

For a good two weeks after the show, the bootlegs couldn't be found for love or money. . You could find somebody's high-school graduation or that silly clip with the talking cats—no Zeppelin.

Here's the rub, however: For a good two weeks after the show, the bootlegs couldn't be found for love or money. A bunch of 30-second clips got pulled off YouTube in record time — One remaining clip listed as "Led Zeppelin at O2" was a few scenes from "Willie Wonka" with some Zep music dubbed on top. You could find somebody's high-school graduation or that silly clip with the talking cats — no Zeppelin.

Maybe people in London were having too good a time to remember to turn their recorders on. Or maybe the ghost of Peter Grant — Zeppelin's late gangster manager, who gunned down bootleg T-shirt dealers in "the Song Remains the Same" — was still taking care of business.

That all changed, of course: YouTube currently has the whole damn show; and there's soundboard-quality audio floating around. Good thing it is too, because a lot of us were cynical about the reunion, especially after the half-arsed showing Zeppelin made at Live Aid. This time they really sound like themselves, with Robert Plant hitting the high notes again, and Jimmy Page coming out of whatever haze he's been in. No surprise the clips are out, then — Can't hurt to have their fans know they got the mojo back.

But somehow the brief blackout seemed appropriate. After all, Zeppelin's heyday was in the 70s, long before any of this internet stuff was invented. If you were in high school then, you only got live music by begging your parents to let you go to shows; and they probably said no anyway. So you holed up in your bedroom with your headphones, a copy of Rolling Stone (trust me, it was good once) and the FM radio (ditto); and fantasized: Somewhere people were going wild, illegal substances were in the air, and Plant was strutting upfront. Same deal in London last month — Plant was strutting once again; Marilyn Manson, Kate Moss and Lisa Marie Presley all got to be there; the rest of us didn't. Time to pull out "Physical Graffiti" and fantasize once more. Maybe even time to send us another complaint about how there aren't any Zep songs on Rock Band.

Posted
January 4
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