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46 Years of Physical Graffiti


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  • 2 weeks later...

I saw them live in 1977 as a 12 year old with my brother at the spectrum. They had just released presence and played an incredible Achilles last stand. John Bonham was incredible live. He used the largest drum sticks in the world. Good thread, BP approves!

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31 minutes ago, BP said:

I saw them live in 1977 as a 12 year old with my brother at the spectrum. They had just released presence and played an incredible Achilles last stand. John Bonham was incredible live. He used the largest drum sticks in the world. Good thread, BP approves!

Saw them at MSG on that tour as well.   Sadly LZ's last.  My two memories are of Page sliding across the stage on his knees as the house lights went up to start the show ("The Song Remains the Same"), and their trademark acoustic set where they sat on stools in front of the stage.  

And what a cool brother taking a kid to that concert.  That's awesome.

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15 minutes ago, munchmemory said:

Saw them at MSG on that tour as well.   Sadly LZ's last.  My two memories are of Page sliding across the stage on his knees as the house lights went up to start the show ("The Song Remains the Same"), and their trademark acoustic set where they sat on stools in front of the stage.  

And what a cool brother taking a kid to that concert.  That's awesome.

Cool! I had tickets to see them again in 1980 but it was not to be. They were awful at live aid, but in page’s defense he had no time to warm up.

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35 minutes ago, BP said:

Cool! I had tickets to see them again in 1980 but it was not to be. They were awful at live aid, but in page’s defense he had no time to warm up.

Group of my buddies and I had tickets for that tour as well.  Bonzo heading off into the alcohol-induced sunset was a gut punch. Strangely, I was just talking to my son about this a few weeks ago.  I shared this article with him:

"A drinking spree killed the rock star John Bonham, an inquest heard yesterday. The drummer with the Led Zeppelin group died through inhaling vomit after drinking about 40 measures of vodka in 12 hours, the inquest at Windsor was told.

The East Berkshire coroner, Mr Robert Wilson, recorded a verdict of accidental death. The court had heard from the Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page, how Mr Bonham, aged 32, turned up "pretty tipsy" for rehearsals at a Windsor studio.

Mr Bonham's personal assistant, Mr Rex King, told how he and Mr Page's assistant had to put Bonham to bed after he dozed off on a sofa at Page's Windsor masion on September 25.

Mr King said that Bonham had first started drinking that day at around noon in a pub near his home at Old Hyde Farm, Cutnall Green, Worcestershire. Asked by the coroner how much Bonham had drunk, Mr King replied: "Around four to five quadruple vodkas with orange."

He said he drove Bonham to the studios, where the star once again began drinking vodka and orange. "He had two or three large ones." After rehearsing with other members of the group they left to go to Page's home, where Bonham continued drinking. 

Mr King said that in a period of four hours Bonham "had a couple of large ones" an hour, finishing about midnight. " He dozed off on a sofa, and we thought it would be best to put him to bed." Bonham had eaten only a couple of ham and salad rolls during the day, and had fish and chips or a pie while at Page's home. 

Mr Albert Hobbs, Mr Page's assistant, described Bonham as a heavy drinker whose tipple was vodka or brandy. He siad it was difficult to tell if he was drunk because he was so used to drink.

The next morning the band's road manager, Mr Ben Lefevre, tried to wake Bonham but noticed something wrong, could not reel a pulse, and called an ambulance.

Dr Edmund Hemstead, pathologist, said that Bonham died through inhaling vomit. One test showed an alcohol level of 276 milligrams per hundered millilitres in a sample taken from the bladder.

Dr Hemstead said: "This indicated he inhaled the vomit but didn't die immediately as the result of that, and that he died some hours later due to the shocked state on inhaling vomit, during which time the alcohol in his blood would have broken down." The pathologist added that a trace of a tension-relieving drug had been found."

And at Live Aid, Page was no longer the player we idolized.  Heroin and other things had greatly diminished his skills.  Plus, according to Page, they just sprung that performance on him and Plant with about 10 minutes to work out the arrangement.  I can listen to about 30 seconds of that performance before cringing to the point of nausea.  An awful embarrassment.

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8 hours ago, munchmemory said:

Saw them at MSG on that tour as well.   Sadly LZ's last.  My two memories are of Page sliding across the stage on his knees as the house lights went up to start the show ("The Song Remains the Same"), and their trademark acoustic set where they sat on stools in front of the stage.  

And what a cool brother taking a kid to that concert.  That's awesome.

I was always a HUGE ELP fan.  As a teenager, I had a good a ticket connection. I could buy ZEP or ELP, I was 15.  I chose ELP as who knew if they would ever play again after the 4 year layoff.  What a regret But I do like knowing I saw ELP with the orchestra. I remember mostly the acoustic set as well.

 

I saw Page and Plant in Bryndon Byrne arena in the early 80's but THAT is not ZEP.

Tidbit.. I LOVE to play Ramble on on the acoustic guitar when I play for someone. It's intermediate in difficulty but so powerful.

I played Thank You at (former) my sister in law's wedding as their dance. THAT was an honor.

My high school rock band played The Rover,  Custard Pie, The Ocean, Stairway, Whole lotta Love, Rock n Roll. Im sure there were others.

 

Love ZEP!  

 

 

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, southparkcpa said:

I was always a HUGE ELP fan.  As a teenager, I had a good a ticket connection. I could buy ZEP or ELP, I was 15.  I chose ELP as who knew if they would ever play again after the 4 year layoff.  What a regret But I do like knowing I saw ELP with the orchestra. I remember mostly the acoustic set as well.

 

I saw Page and Plant in Bryndon Byrne arena in the early 80's but THAT is not ZEP.

Tidbit.. I LOVE to play Ramble on on the acoustic guitar when I play for someone. It's intermediate in difficulty but so powerful.

I played Thank You at (former) my sister in law's wedding as their dance. THAT was an honor.

My high school rock band played The Rover,  Custard Pie, The Ocean, Stairway, Whole lotta Love, Rock n Roll. Im sure there were others.

 

Love ZEP!  

 

 

 

 

 

You know I'm a massive ELP fan as well.  I'm jealous that you got to see them with orchestra.  Those were legendary shows.

And the Led Zeppelin acoustic set was clearly lifted by someone over at MTV who turned it into Unplugged.   At least for me, LZ was the first band I saw live who put down the electric instruments and just sat on stools performing acoustic versions of several songs. 

Your HS band sounds kick ass.  My bands played a few of those numbers, too.  Tell me you did not dig launching into the end section of "the Ocean" with that great 50s walking bass line.  Plus, the opening riff is so killer.

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9 minutes ago, munchmemory said:

You know I'm a massive ELP fan as well.  I'm jealous that you got to see them with orchestra.  Those were legendary shows.

And the Led Zeppelin acoustic set was clearly lifted by someone over at MTV who turned it into Unplugged.   At least for me, LZ was the first band I saw live who put down the electric instruments and just sat on stools performing acoustic versions of several songs. 

Your HS band sounds kick ass.  My bands played a few of those numbers, too.  Tell me you did not dig launching into the end section of "the Ocean" with that great 50s walking bass line.  Plus, the opening riff is so killer.

Absolutely...  I was just learning about jazz then and the guitar player, a GREAT musician, was helping me understand "stuff".  Basically explaining to me it's 2 chords, just walk an arpeggio type scale over them.  I miss and cherish those days.  He taught me how to sing harmony as well. Crazy thing.. his name was Tom Brady. Great guy. Serious.

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On 3/9/2021 at 3:29 PM, southparkcpa said:

I was always a HUGE ELP fan.  As a teenager, I had a good a ticket connection. I could buy ZEP or ELP, I was 15.  I chose ELP as who knew if they would ever play again after the 4 year layoff.  What a regret But I do like knowing I saw ELP with the orchestra. I remember mostly the acoustic set as well.

 

I saw Page and Plant in Bryndon Byrne arena in the early 80's but THAT is not ZEP.

Tidbit.. I LOVE to play Ramble on on the acoustic guitar when I play for someone. It's intermediate in difficulty but so powerful.

I played Thank You at (former) my sister in law's wedding as their dance. THAT was an honor.

My high school rock band played The Rover,  Custard Pie, The Ocean, Stairway, Whole lotta Love, Rock n Roll. Im sure there were others.

 

Love ZEP!  

 

 

 

 

 

Great set list from your HS band.  Physical Graffiti is my favorite Zep album ... and The Rover is my favorite tune from that album.  

Random story about my love for that song.  My drum teacher had a monster 3-ring binder with transcriptions of every Led Zep tune.  At my first lesson (with this particular teacher - I had already been playing for years), he says he wants to test my sight reading . . . and I am a bad-to-mediocre sight reader.  He says, "I'm going to pull out a lesser-known Zep tune at random from this binder and see how you do".  He happens to pull out The Rover.  This is a tune I have listened to thousands of times in my life and played hundreds of times on the drums.  Of course, I play the tune perfectly, note for note, with no mistakes.  He thinks I'm some kind of prodigy. 

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew the tune so well that I didn't even glance at the sheet music while playing.  But he found out soon enough where I was really at musically when we started playing other stuff.  :)

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24 minutes ago, AFCEastFan said:

Great set list from your HS band.  Physical Graffiti is my favorite Zep album ... and The Rover is my favorite tune from that album.  

Random story about my love for that song.  My drum teacher had a monster 3-ring binder with transcriptions of every Led Zep tune.  At my first lesson (with this particular teacher - I had already been playing for years), he says he wants to test my sight reading . . . and I am a bad-to-mediocre sight reader.  He says, "I'm going to pull out a lesser-known Zep tune at random from this binder and see how you do".  He happens to pull out The Rover.  This is a tune I have listened to thousands of times in my life and played hundreds of times on the drums.  Of course, I play the tune perfectly, note for note, with no mistakes.  He thinks I'm some kind of prodigy. 

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew the tune so well that I didn't even glance at the sheet music while playing.  But he found out soon enough where I was really at musically when we started playing other stuff.  :)

I remember being able to almost sight read.  I was a fairly good musician back in the day.....   good story bro.  

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