IN MY SHOES: What It Was Like To Be At The Led Zep Reunion Concert
At the invitation of his college roommate, who won a lottery to buy one of just 8,000 pairs of tickets, Washington, D.C. attorney Erik Huey, who’s pushing 40, found himself just 15 yards from the stage at the O2 Arena to see Led Zeppelin perform the first full-length concert in 27 years. Here’s his review:
Can they pull it off? Can a trio of 59-to-63-year-old men recapture the raw thunder and sexually charged intensity of their youth? …
[T]hink of the person you were decades ago - adolescent, unshackled by cynicism and Weltschmerz, full of youthful abandon and an unblinking belief in the sheer possibility of things. …
As they launch into the opening chords of "Good Times Bad Times," the band seems to acknowledge the limitations brought on by the passage of time. … By the time they finish their second and third songs - "Ramble On" and "Black Dog" - it is becoming clear that, even if they are not gods who walk the Earth as men, these are no mere mortals before us. And this is going to be no mere rock show. We are witnessing history. …
They're dressed entirely in black, except for Page, who is wearing a white tux shirt that quickly becomes soaked in sweat and plastered to his gyrating torso. Page is the maestro, alternating thick, crunching riffs with piercing, scalpel-sharp solos. Plant, looking lionlike with his thick mane of curly hair and gray whiskers, bellows with soulful yearning (albeit sometimes an octave lower than he did in the '70s) and regains more of his trademark swagger with each passing song. The progenitor of every sexually charged rock frontman cliche is not the poster boy he once was, but he still exudes a confident sensuality that has the women in the crowd swooning. …
With every note, as the night goes on, the weight of the years melts away and we are transported closer to our adolescent rock-and-roll selves. …
Led Zeppelin had pulled it off. And so had we.
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