THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME (FILM)

I was a teenage Zeppelin fanatic, devotee, addict. Jimmy 24/7 is all I cared about as far as music goes. Most critics slam this film. I've heard the complaints: too long, the band was tired, dumb non-music parts, etc etc. Whatever. All I know is that this film was such a thrill to me and my friends. When the lights came up and the band kicked in we'd have chills down our spines, wishing it were 10 years earlier so we could have seen Zep in their prime. We were just a tad too young to see our heroes so this film was all we had.

As a reviewer certainly there are some problems I would normally bring up. Not here. This is one of those emotional reviews that I can't separate from my life experience. I've watched it alone, with my best friends, at parties, and at "midnight movies" showings when theatres were cool and they'd allow throngs of teenagers to pile in late at night and look the other way while kids made out, drank beers, smoked and watched The Wall, Let There Be Rock, and this movie. I can remember looking around me and seeing the older guys firing up right in the theater. While my life no longer resembles the early 80s I have to admit that I look back on all that with nothing but good memories and no regrets. We had a blast and most of the people I knew back then turned out just fine. All of this "drug war" nonsense has turned out to be far more destructive, in many ways, than the casual marijuana use ever was. (An observation, not an endorsement.) These memories are not separable to me from the experience of Song Remains The Same and my opinion of the film can only be a positive one because it was the soundtrack my youth.

As I said, this film has one of the most exciting beginnings for Zep fans. The lights come up and they launch in to R and R. The crowd at Madison Square is just classic, what a party! A few moments later comes the first of two musical highlight for me. The live version of "Since I've Been Loving You" is one of LZ's very greatest moments, one of Jimmy's most perfectly raunchy moments choking the emotion out of that Gibson. "No Quarter" soars to new heights and deeper foggier lows, absolutely great. The other monster highlight for me is "SRTS/Rain Song" combo. The first features some of my favorite LZ grooves while the latter is perhaps their most poignant moment, their most beautiful chord progressions ever laid down with the possible exception of "Ten Years Gone." This first half was always the highlight to me musically. The longer blues numbers in the second half, Dazed, Whole Lotta, Moby, etc are certainly classic LZ, I just don't like those songs as well. Yes the band fantasy sequences are a bit cheesy, a bit silly, boring at times. But I still loved watching Peter Grant in action tearing apart the bootlegger, or the backstage moments. Zeppelin fans were not looking for intellectual cinema a la Antonioni, they were just looking for a good time.

As Guillermo says, watching the film now as an older person it may lose some of its "magic" to us. But that's our problem, not the films. The film was made for the young, fervent 70s Zep kids and it succeeded at exactly what it went for. It rocked us big time then. Who cares about now? It wasn't made for middle-aged guys at prog sites. We can get off on our fancy music and all is well. I haven't seen it in a while and may not watch it again because I've seen it so many times I can replay the thing in my head at will. It's a film for young fans, then or now, who are discovering a great band. Seeing Robert in Wales, Jimmy's dragon pants, Bonzo's cars, JPJ hunkered down in the back, Peter in action, and rocking out to the best of the 70s with your friends. Who can argue with that? Recommended to any Zeppelin fan but especially those who still have an obsessive enthusiasm for the greatest band ever.

Like I said, it's all a nostalgia review this time, no objectivity in sight! I'll never forget Grant getting in his little shot at America while ripping the poster bootlegger. Obviously they had more trouble in the States than at home: "as long as there's an extra nickel to be drained by exploiting Led Zeppelin, it's great, with the f@cking stars and stripes behind it." [P. Grant]

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