Warm Fuzzies

The strangest things make me feel sentimental, I once teared up listening to Anarchy In The UK while driving, had to pull over to finish listening to it. Recent posts in a couple of my favorite blogs got me feeling warm and fuzzy all over. In Peromyscus, Lyle Hopwood posted video of Communication Breakdown filmed on Led Zeppelin’s last night at Earls Court and a quick history of why this particular version was so meaningful. If you just watch it, it’s good. Communication Breakdownis a fun, punky song, one of my favorites, that typifies Led Zeppelin’s beginnings. Maybe you’ve seen the Royal Albert Hall concert version or the Danish TV performance on the 2003 DVD, they are young and energized and play the song with pride and show off just a little bit. Peromyscus sets the stage beautifully, giving you the back story of Earls Court and telling you just how meaningful this performance is.

They’ve just done a whole week, three and a half hours each night. This is the very last song of the run; an extra encore they didn’t play on the other nights – this, with with the other extra encore, Heartbreaker, is pushing the show to three and three quarter hours.The crowd’s insane. Plant knows his voice has gone and it doesn’t matter. Bonham “collapses” at the end (I’m sure it’s a joke)…It’s amazing. It’s an event – there’s more going on here than can ever be captured on tape. But you can still see it. There’s always some of that magic fairy dust left, even in a 425 pixel wide YouTube window.

In 1975, Led Zeppelin has seen everything and done everything, but still have that glimmer of magic fairy dust at Earls Court.

The other warm fuzzy I had this week was courtesy of Youdopia featuring a performance by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It, done for the Sun Records tribute called Good Rockin’ Tonight.  Recorded in 2001, Jimmy and Robert strum and sing their way respectively through a great old Rockabilly tune. No dragons winding up Jimmy Pages thighs, and Robert doesn’t sport the bare midriff, but their pleasure in making music shines through. And I believe I saw some magic fairy dust floating about here and there.