On the recommendation of the THC Daughter (a huge Zep fan) I watched Becoming Led Zeppelin, a recent documentary covering the founding of the band and its first two album and initial tours. The Daughter gets A+ for her recommendation.
Becoming features recent interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, as well as a previously unheard late 1970s interview with John Bonham (who died in 1980) along with incredible footage of early Zeppelin gigs which I'd never seen before.
We get the origin stories for the band members, including Bonham and Plant who were friends before Zeppelin. I knew about Page's background as a studio musician and Yardbird but little about the others and found it quite interesting - Plant was studying to be a chartered accountant! I also hadn't been aware of the extent to which putting the band together and its initial recordings were a Jimmy Page driven project.
The performance footage shows Zeppelin as a overpowering sonic powerhouse right from the start and Bonham sure hits those drums hard. The documentary is also a reminder that the rock critics, particularly the influential Rolling Stone, hated Led Zeppelin, but despite that the band quickly built a huge following.
Page, Plant, and Jones were engaging in their Old Guy interviews and watching them listening to the Bonham interview (which they'd never heard) was touching.
I was also happy to see Page give a public nod to Jake Holmes as the inspiration for Dazed and Confused. You can read about the specifics of how Page was "inspired" by Holmes here.
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