Opinion: Jimmy Page needs to move on

As we go deeper into this 21st century and this instant-gratification information age, I can't help but question to what extent the band has become popularized to the point of no return.

If that's the case, and if there's a bit of remorse on Jimmy Page's side, I wonder to what extent this emotion is driving his decision-making today.

I wonder if his fear is driving his indecision when it comes to unveiling the long-delayed next phase of his career.

Page has been the self-appointed protectorate of Led Zeppelin throughout and following the era of manager Peter Grant, who astutely acquired a record deal for Led Zeppelin on the unprecedented contingency that the band was guaranteed exclusive control over its own image and recordings.

The band used this to great effect for some time, resisting TV appearances on the notion that Led Zeppelin was too monstrous an entity for small screens. On the road, the band hired a monstrous sound system, and only a leased jet would do when it came to transporting themselves across the United States. The group stopped touring England after January 1973 because its audience had grown too big for any venue that wasn't centrally located.

When they finished up their record-setting five-night run in May 1975, Robert Plant joked onstage that it would be their last concert in England until the 1980s. As it turns out, he wasn't far off the mark.

They didn't sell singles. You had to buy the album. If you liked that song "Kashmir" and wanted a copy, you'd have to buy an album with 15 songs spread across four sides. Ha. Kids now take it for granted that iTunes sells Led Zeppelin tracks individually for a buck apiece.

Everything about Led Zeppelin was big. Big sights, big sounds. But it wasn't just size that counts (right, guys?). There were also a bunch of mysteries.

Led Zeppelin's albums themselves were shrouded in mystery. There was the untitled one with no labeling information on the outside. Then there was the one that was sold in a brown paper bag so you couldn't tell exactly what you were getting. The artwork on the 1990 box set was right on in that regard. Featuring the crop circles may have been the last great decision by the Led Zeppelin organization.

When I interviewed John Paul Jones in 2001 and acquired stories from him that dispelled some long-held myths about the band, he second-guessed his own unlimited honesty, interjecting that he'd still like to leave a little bit of mystery to Led Zeppelin. I agreed, but author Mick Wall now believes he has lost his friendship with Page by breaking that barrier from the inside and writing a biography he says is revealing and painfully accurate.

The year 2007 was a red-letter year for a wave of small things officially sanctioned by Led Zeppelin that don't necessarily hold up to the principles of enormity and mystery:

• The Song Remains the Same, a grandiose film once savored at midnight showings was scaled down for your home. Oh, but we can justify this because in-home TVs and sound systems are better nowadays. Sure, but that doesn't explain why an inferior version of the movie was ever available on VHS in the first place. (Does anybody remember VCRs?)
• Mothership was a two-disc distillation of the group's studio output, and it was a rehash of not one but two other very similar distillations the band had produced. But this can be condoned because it's only a sampler that introduces new generations to the real stuff, right? And the artwork on Mothership is great and mysterious, right?
• iTunes began selling Led Zeppelin tracks individually for a buck apiece. The "it's only a sampler" argument to defend this decision is on even shakier ground here.
• The band started putting short videos on its own YouTube channel. It wasn't just the few promotional relics that were made years ago for "Whole Lotta Love" and "Travelling Riverside Blues." It was live footage. It's great to see this stuff, but it's minimalistic and low-quality, and YouTube just smells like populism. Peter Grant takes another spin around in his grave.
• Led Zeppelin launched its own official Web site, one component of which is the gateway to an online marketplace of officially sanctioned merchandise. As a result, fans can toss their dollars at a company called Bravado to get a Led Zeppelin beach towel and matching bag, a barstool, a blacklight poster, a hoodie. Peter Grant is getting his workout in the cemetery as long as there's another dollar out there to be earned off of Led Zeppelin's name with the stars and stripes behind it.

One other event in 2007 that is important to the legacy of Led Zeppelin is that reunion concert held one year ago this month. While the world wanted to knock down the doors of the O2 arena on Dec. 10 and get a peek inside, the number of people who were there was less than 20,000. This was a way of resisting the temptation to cater to the masses. The goal was simply to pay tribute to Ahmet Ertegün with all proceeds going to the education fund started in his name. How'd they do? "Hey, Ahmet, we did it!" I think they pulled this off incredibly well despite the initial glitches in the ticketing process.

But since that O2 concert was filmed, there must be temptation to release a video of it. You can almost guarantee it would outsell Lil Wayne and Kid Rock and Katy Perry combined. But isn't that just the point? They'd just be making more money, and they don't need that. They'd be catering to public demand, and the Led Zeppelin of old might have been against that.

The other day, I speculated here that a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion filmed in ground-breaking 3-D could satiate unlimited generations of fans forever. But that's precisely my point: Why would Led Zeppelin set out to satiate its fans? Page must be well aware that the law of diminishing returns predicts the demand for a 3-D theatrical release wouldn't sustain itself over time. If you make Led Zeppelin so accessible to the consumer and increase the supply, what does that eventually do to the demand?

Maybe that concept is exactly what Plant was thinking earlier this year when he told GQ magazine why he didn't feel a Led Zeppelin world tour was something he wanted to do. Plant said, "Led Zeppelin's never been about the fans. We've always been about four guys coming together to make thrilling, disturbing rock 'n' roll. On our own terms." Would a 3-D theatrical release be acceptable and defensible?

On the other hand, would it be only one of many options that would distill and minimize our mammoth rock group? Our hopes for a reunion tour and a new album would only appease our selfish demands. Man, we're just coddled fans who feel we deserve everything we want. We're nothing more than spoiled brats demanding Santa Claus to provide everything on our wish list. Doesn't all of this reek of compromising the principles of our favorite band ever?

But who here has compromised it? Who's the guilty party? Look again at everything that happened in 2007. Isn't this something Led Zeppelin has compromised itself?

And now that we have a little taste, now that the band has reunited so perfectly and proven itself capable of giving a flawless performance once again, we only want more. Can you blame us? Anyone can see that the genie has been let out of the bottle. Perhaps, as Page famously suggested to Mojo magazine a year ago, they never should have let the genie out of the bottle.

Screw it, Jimmy. Go ahead and tell us what your next band will be like. Forget your image. Just go out there and play some killer music already. Do it quickly before John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham slip away from your grasp once and for all. Can't you see that Michael Lee is already gone. Robert Plant's a lost cause. You can have Jones and Bonham today. Go and get them.

Defending the work of Led Zeppelin is a task that is unending. But your work as Jimmy Page the artist is for a limited time only. You must act now.

Devoted fans are standing by.

Myles Kennedy states the obvious when deflecting Led Zeppelin question

Has Myles Kennedy been in the studio with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones?

In this videotaped interview for Stormbringer in Austria, the Alter Bridge singer deflects this direct question, only to offer what sounds like a prepared statement designed to be evasive.

"I'll say this. Can I just say this?" He looks into the camera and says, even with the hand gesture of a politician, "I am not singing for Led Zeppelin."



Of course Myles Kennedy is not singing for Led Zeppelin. If he's singing in a band with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones and even Jason Bonham, it'll be with a few Led Zeppelin members, but they aren't going to call it Led Zeppelin. It won't be called Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant. Even Page's management has said so. We all know that.

Kennedy might as well have said he's not singing for Creed. His current band, Alter Bridge, includes three former members of Creed, with him being the only one in Alter Bridge who wasn't ever in Creed. Same scenario, same concept. But that's not what the interviewer asked, and so that's not the answer he got.

Kennedy doesn't look like he would offer any other explanation. He looks like that's all he is permitted to say. Which, if you're like me, either means his lips are sealed or he just plumb cherishes all the attention.

The interview, which has Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti sitting at the right side of the interviewer and Kennedy on his left, goes for nine-and-a-half minutes before that question and answer. It opens with some questions about the band's decision to play Led Zeppelin songs onstage and Kennedy's blues influences such as Robert Johnson.

Wishful thinking: Led Zeppelin filmed in 3-D

A question for all you Led Zeppelin fans out there: How would you like to enjoy your favorite musicians in 3-D?

If only this weren't just something I'm dreaming up. Maybe these thoughts of mine will go straight from my blog to Led Zeppelin's ears, and maybe it would be something to consider.

How about Led Zeppelin performing a reunion concert, another one just like last year's one-off show, and broadcasting it live all around the world with pristine sound, stunning 3-D images, and with camera angles you wouldn't be able to experience from the floor or in the stands?

I started thinking about this when I was reading this Reuters report about some new technological advances that are making fact out of science fiction.

I don't know if any diehard sports fans have ever envisioned they could go to a movie theater and watch the big game on the silver screen in 3-D. Seeing quarterbacks Philip Rivers and JaMarcus Russell throw passes in a 3-D setting may not have been a lifelong goal for gridiron fans on the sidelines.

But this technological advance is real, and it is here. They're trying it out. And technogeeks will surely pack the three participating theaters on Dec. 4 when this unprecedented display of live 3-D football occurs in private showings for industry insiders.

From a Wall Street Journal article on Nov. 24:

This isn't the first time the NFL has participated in a 3-D experiment. In 2004, a predecessor company to 3ality [Digital LLC] filmed the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. When Sandy Climan, 3ality's chief executive officer, shows the footage, "people crouch down to catch the ball," he says. "It's as if the ball is coming into your arms."

Cool. But will there still be tailgating?

This marks the arrival of something monumental that was predicted less than a year ago by Michael Lewis, chairman and cofounder of Real D. He's quoted in this Wall Street Journal piece as having "long advocated the transmission of live events to theaters in 3-D."

One past example of him making this prediction came in February, when the Associated Press reported his opinion that "3D technology eventually could expand [to] turn theaters into venues showing live concerts and sporting events."

The article explains that Real D was the company whose technology was employed in separate 3-D movies showing pop starlet Miley Cyrus and rock band U2 at the time. The AP quotes Lewis as saying:

"There are a lot of places, a lot of small towns where we have Real D in place where U2's not going to go, Hannah Montana's not going to play there. ... They'll be able to see it in theaters, and in my view maybe with a better seat and better experience than if they were actually there live."

And that's a common theme among people who, as I did, experienced the movie "U2 3D" in IMAX theaters this year. Seeing that film in February stands out as one of the most memorable and moving moments in my life this year. And yes, I felt like I had some better views of the stage than I would have as one of tens of thousands of fans stuffed into a stadium.

Here's what Richard Harrington of the Washington Post had to say back in January:

In "U2 3D," the band seems so . . . up close, personal and dimensional, it's as if they're slipping off the screen into your lap.

Welcome to the future of the concert film, where you'll duck your head as the Edge's guitar neck pops out with such immediacy you'll want to retune it! Or you'll want to slap hands with singer Bono as he reaches out to you in the middle of "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own."

Even better than the real thing? Maybe not, but surprisingly close and accessible.

Director Catherine Owens, who has collaborated with U2 on the band's elaborate concert visuals for 15 years, recalls a discussion with a colleague that "the future of entertainment would be that bands don't actually have to go on the road -- somehow they'll be holographically beamed. And we were joking around, 'Not in our lifetime.' But in a funny way, this film is that."

The Wall Street Journal says Real D "has rolled out 3-D systems in 1,500 theaters around the world" and that "some live events, including opera broadcasts and circus performances, already pop up on screens at theaters across the country."

But have there been any live musical performances? If not, this could be a frontier for Led Zeppelin.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Robert Plant said this and Jimmy Page said that. Of course I know it. Robert Plant only said he's against touring with Led Zeppelin for now. He never said he wouldn't do another one-off concert with Led Zeppelin. And I'd be surprised if Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have written off that possibility either.

Wouldn't it leave a permanent historical mark if Led Zeppelin became the first group ever to perform a concert shown in 3-D simultaneously to 50 countries?

I don't care if it's a one-off performance. That's fine. Fans would get more mileage and satisfaction out of this one-off performance than they did out of the O2 show, and Led Zeppelin wouldn't have to worry about disrupting Plant's anti-tour stance.

People who just want to see Led Zeppelin, complete with Robert Plant, will go and see the 3-D film. Movie tickets are more affordable than concert tickets.

Theaters can keep showing it over and over again. Midnight showings. In 3-D. All over the world. For a decade. Maybe forever. As long as there is a demand for it. And few bands have the cross-generational staying power of Led Zeppelin.

Heck, it would be in the spirit of Led Zeppelin to do three concerts, shoot all three in 3-D and broadcast them live worldwide in 3-D. That way, the band can improvise every night and change things up the way they always did. A longer guitar solo here, a melody line shift there, an impromptu jam one night, you name it.

This would give fans like Eddie Edwards of The Garden Tapes something to look forward to in repeat showings. And to really keep the fans on their toes, the theaters should never indicate which of the three concerts they are playing on any given night. Fans might never realize it could be one of the three until they start noticing the differences on their own.

This would be a throwback nod to the ingenious plan to release six different In Through the Out Door LP covers in 1979. Since the album covers were hidden underneath the seal of a plain brown bag, and because the plot was initially a guarded secret, consumers had to buy multiple LPs before they knew they were possibly collecting six different covers.

I'm just thinking aloud here. But I hope my words don't fall upon deaf ears. I hope Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and Jason Bonham take this into serious consideration.

The technology has arrived to present 3-D concerts live on a large scale. We have a barrier to break, a frontier to bust through. History will be made whether or not Led Zeppelin is on board. I just think it would be a whole lot cooler if Led Zeppelin were on board, and I'm sure a lot of other people would agree.

This could only further cement Led Zeppelin's already immense position in the history of music, plaster casters and all.

You thought playing at the Olympics would lend some visibility? Just you wait.