The Beatles often are afforded, in my humble opinion far too much, extravagant bouts of affectionate accolade, exaltation and praise, commonly characterized as the “pioneers of rock”, the “greatest band of all time” and various other mythical formulations. As previously suggested, its been my belief that these grandiose interpretations of a musical outfit that, once objectively analyzed and stripped of all nostalgic framings and circumstantial evidential fluff is essentially quite non-extraordinary and even at times outright mediocre in terms of melodic instrumental orchestration and lyrical prowess, are rather wasted.

Yes, The Beatles were ahead of their time in many regards, they acted as catalystic jump-starts for the nascent advancement of serious studio recording technology, and were the first musical troupe to perform at the traditionally martial arts centric Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, paving the way for legendary “Live at Budokan” concerts by giants such as Ozzy Osbourne or Dream Theater. And of course theres scarcely a human being who fancies themself a music afficianado who doesn’t have a favorite song by the Beatles. These are all reasons that they should be respected and upheld as an important entity in the history of music. However, these assertions do nothing to substantiate the wholly fatuous and hyperbolic contention that the Beatles “are the fathers of rock”.

And thats where Led Zeppelin comes in.

Rock and metal have both branched out into sprawling, far reaching sub-genre trees; beneath the over-arching umbrella of these two catagories is a whole myriad of various and diversified coefficient subsidiary genres, some of which have their own sub genres. And yet its virtually impossible to find a strain of modern rock/metal which hasn’t ultimately found its roots to Zeppelin. They’ve directly impacted the spawning and growth of music from all across the spectrum, everything from classically-styled mellow folk rock the likes of Comus to blasting thrash metal in the form of Godsmack or Pantera, to the immensely intricate harmonics and complex time signatures of progressive metal such as Symphony X or the aforementioned Dream Theater, or even some of the most extreme manifestations of the genre such as death metal giant Opeth. All of these groups have either directly cited at least a portion of their integral style influence from Zeppelin, or have made it flagrantly obvious in their music. It should also be noted that Eddie van Halen regards Jimmy Page as his inspirational muse for the popularization of double-handed fretboard tapping, which has so drastically and astronomically warped the musical landscape.

I’ll openly admit, however blasphemous it may be to suggest, that I’m not the biggest Led Zeppelin fan, this is almost entirely due to Robert Plant’s “lyrical rambling” style, which can become positively annoying at times. But I am certainly a fan, I recognize their unquestionable talent and technical virtuosity, and Kashmir remains as one of my all-time favorite songs, a flawless masterpiece of rock and in my opinion the band’s magnum opus. It is my firm and unwavering conviction that they are the single most influential musical outfit of the last century, without them rock, and consequently heavy metal as we know it simply would not exist; essentially every contemporary rock/metal band in one way or another traces their genealogy back to Zeppelin, an expansive and timeless sphere of influence that may only be seconded by Rush.

So I’m not in the least surprised about the meteoric fervor generated over their O2 gig last night, their first performance in 27 years. The concert was in support of the great late Turkish-American (I’m half-Turkish myself, so naturally I’m just bursting with pride) former founder and president of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun, an entrepreneurial mastermind and a human monument to the proof and reality that is the American dream success story. From what it looks like in the embedded bootlegged video, it was a fantastic show, they sounded great even after all these years in dormancy, and they even got Foreigner’s Jason Bonham, son of the original drummer and tragically deceased John Bonham to fill up the position, thus symbolically re-creating the original band roster in name. Quite an impressive setlist as well:

1. “Good Times Bad Times”
2. “Ramble On” (live debut)
3. “Black Dog”
4. “In My Time of Dying”
5. “For Your Life” (live debut)
6. “Trampled Under Foot”
7. “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”
8. “No Quarter”
9. “Since I’ve Been Loving You”
10. “Dazed and Confused”
11. “Stairway to Heaven”
12. “The Song Remains the Same”
13. “Misty Mountain Hop”
14. “Kashmir”

Encore:

1. “Whole Lotta Love”
2. “Rock and Roll”

Reportedly one attendee spent over $180,000 for a pair of tickets, thats rather insane (is he obscenely rich or a fanatic to a scale that would put Al Qaida to shame?), but nonetheless hopefully it’ll convince Zeppelin to finally go on a reunion tour, which Page recently said may very well transpire.

Whatever happens, the music will never die. Long live Rock, long live Metal, long live Led.

Keep it prog.