So who were Led Zeppelin? Our man of vinyl and long hair, Matthew Salisbury, offers a personal note on John Bonham’s fabulous band.
BEING a teenager during the height of the band’s success, I was too young to have caught them at the start, but old enough to look up to them in their pomp. And what a pomp it was.
Stepping out of the experimental blues phase of the late sixties, the Zeps recast themselves as some sort of cross between Celtic wizards and mythical gods. Massive songs on sprawling albums brought them wide appeal and even wider flared trousers.
For a while Led Zeppelin held that coveted but entirely notional title of the biggest band in the world. They travelled in a Jumbo Jet, played the biggest gigs with the loudest sound under the greatest light shows. Tales of their excesses and misdemeanours along the road grew to (probably) mythical proportions. No bar was sufficiently well-stocked; no hotel room TV was safe.
John Bonham
The music, for all the excess that world domination heaped on it, continued to be excellent. Those new to the band should look beyond Stairway to Heaven and try out the joys of Physical Graffiti or Houses of the Holy. Many have, and many subsequent heroes of the music scene namecheck Bonzo and his colleagues as true inspirations.
Throughout the seventies you could rely on Led Zep to be the sum (or more) of their parts. Jimmy Page power-chording a guitar slung so low it almost touched the ground, John Paul Jones moving seamlessly between bass and keyboards, Robert Plant all chest and hair – like a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
And behind them the peerless John Bonham. While his early death has given him that legend status which always guarantees a place at rock’s top table, it should be noted that he won his enviable reputation while very much still alive.
Powerful, driving, frequently over-the-top and as much a star as the rest of the quartet. He also provided subtlety behind some of the decade’s great gentle songs. A true all-rounder.
Perhaps the greatest testament to Bonzo’s worth is there in the fact that when HE died, so did the band. They all opted to call it a day.
Like countless other outfits, Zep could have just slid in a replacement and continued to pull in the fans, the sales and the plaudits. But they didn’t. And that’s something this town should be proud of.
WHAT makes John Bonham so good?
John Ibbotson, who is also a drummer and plans to come up from Somerset to see the statue, said: “I’m a huge, huge fan of John Bonham.
“He was groundbreaking, way before his time.
“Even now, the stuff he was doing back in the late 60s has not been matched.
“He was also all about feel and groove and I do not think anyone has come close to him, while his fast technique for his bass drum is still unique.”
