However, once the gig started, I did wish I’d bought standing tickets. It was the usual problem. Lots of people talking and getting up every few minutes for the drink / piss cycle. For the first half of the gig,I felt disconnected from the performance, despite Jack doing his best efforts. He was performing to his usual standards. At the halfway point, it improved considerably when people started to stand around me.

As mentioned, Jack and band were on form. But I did notice a difference. The keyboard player, Isaiah “Ikey” Owens recently died while on tour. He’s been replaced by Dean Fertita from the Raconteurs and Dead Weather, and I felt the keyboards weren’t as prominent in this gig. It was a nice touch for Jack to recognise Isaiah By dedicating a song to him.

Mystery Jets

Mumfords ans Sons

The Black Keys

The Black Keys

But the performance on the night was good. It wasn’t simply hype. Better in fact than I expected. Jason Bonham taking over from his late father on sticks did an amazing job. Right from the beginning his drums thundered at the back, driving the songs forward. It was clear the night meant something to each of them and they didn’t want to mess it up.

The question after the gig was would they reform. The performance was good. Why wouldn’t they? The answer lies with time. Time makes us different people and in Robert Plant’s case, he’s long since moved on from being ‘rock god’ and forged his own post-Zep career. Maybe it’s arrogance as some fans think, personally I think he’s long since realised that they couldn’t re-tread old ground but the fans would demand the ‘fans’ idea of Zep. So Zep fans have been left with the O2 gig and the knowledge that it was a good gig. When would it be released? It has to be released? Why wouldn’t they release it? After nearly five years, I think many had given up on it.

So to tonight. Here I am sat in Hammersmith Apollo about to relive the biggest music night of my life. Would it live up to my memory? Was my memory of the evening right? If other people experience the evening would it take something away from my experience? (Selfish, I know). So here I am, sat at the UK Premier of ‘Celebration Day’, the film of the O2 gig. A packed house full of anticipation for seeing what’s likely the last even Zep gig. The only other time I seen this much anticipation in a cinema was sat in the audience waiting for the Phantom Menace – and we all know what disappointment that led to. Would it be good, please let it be good?

After a brief introduction from Jimmy and Robert, the lights went down and then…. ‘dum’, ‘dum’…. ‘dum’, ‘dum’.. thundered into the auditorium and the realisation started that I was actually watching the O2 gig. Not crapy Youtube clips (including my own) but a high quality film. For the next two hours I relived the evening and many of the emotions of the evening. I’m not saying that watching a film could be an equivalent for being at an actual gig. But presenting it in a real venue with the sound turned up, sitting along with 2000 other fans, definitely added to the evening.

From the opening song ‘Good Times Bad Times’, through to the ‘Rock and Roll’ everything was as good as I remembered. The guys did nail it on the night and Jason, Jason would have made his dad so proud. Jason was simply fantastic. I remember at the time everyone coming out of the O2 with smiles on the faces. But there were conversations all around about how good Jason had been. Before the gig there had been concern that he wasn’t the right choice. That he couldn’t fill his father’s place. But we knew on the night that he was the only choice, the right choice and the lad delivered. This film proves it. It’s clear from the admiring looks, smiles and nods and laughter, that Robert, Jimmy and JPJ knew that Jason had nailed it. I can only imaging what the evening meant to Jason. Can you imagine stepping into your famous fathers shoes on the biggest stage ever and getting it right? If I’m honest, I don’t think I can comprehend what that must mean to Jason.

There are many highlights from the gig. For me Kashmir stands out as the best song of the evening. It’s my favourite Zep song. I think it’s one of the best versions they’ve ever done. Equal to anything I’ve heard on bootlegs and re-issues. Maybe it’s the most ‘Zep’ song. Maybe it’s still the song that they can all sit happiest with. But it was perfect on the night and perfect on film.

But there are too many highlights from the evening. Even songs I wasn’t overly keen on, came across better live. The song many thought Robert might ‘karaoke’ his way through, Stairway, was excellent. No Quarter, another highlight. I suspect when I get the DVD. My favourites will change again. It really was such a good performance that every Zep fan will love this film. But what the film captures most, was how proud the guys were of Jason. We can only guess what the evening really meant to them. So let’s leave it as that. Let’s stop hassling the guys to reform. Let them go out on a high knowing that they did Ahmet Ertegun and John Bonham proud.

Last year Lucasfilm developed ‘Star Wars in Concert’. A two hour show narrated by Anthony Daniels (C3P0) where specially edited film from the 6 Star Wars films are accompanied by a live orchestra playing John Williams’ music from the films.

Unlike a ‘classical’ concert, ‘Star Wars in Concert’ is designed to be played in big arenas. Dirk Brosse conducts an amplified Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra along with a full choir. The amplification is a necessary evil to allow the event to take place in large venus such as the O2. But these venues really aren’t designed to handle orchestral music and the sound quality wasn’t brilliant, even when compared to the Royal Albert Hall, with lots echo and a lot of the ‘colour’ lost from the sound.

The concert is split into short themed sections that are meant to tell the Star Wars story and to show case John Williams’ compositions. Anthony Daniels was at his camp best setting the scene for each section. Although it was great to have a Star Wars actor presenting the concert, it would have been much better to have had C3PO waddling out to give the introductions. But as it was, the children in the audience seemed to know who the narrator was.

Despite the poor sound quality, the event was excellent (though expensive). It was interesting hearing John Williams music isolated from the films. Although I probably know the music off by heart, I’ve only ever listened to it within the context of the films. This was the first time I’ve listened to his music in relative isolation. It’s been said that John Williams’ work is derivative of better composers. Listening to the pieces it was clear where some of his influences are. Shostakovich is a personal favourite of mine and I could hear what sounded like whole sections of Shostakovich’s music reused within various Star Wars themes. I know classical buffs use this fact to deride John Williams but I didn’t have a problem with this. A film composer’s jobs is to create music that fits enhances the film. Borrowing passages that heighten our enjoyment of the film isn’t cheating, but good selection.

If you’ve been to a classical concert, one of the first things you notice is that the conductor really does do something! He isn’t waving his hand around, but he really is the person interpreting the music. No two conductors will conduct a piece of music the in the same way. Altering the timing or the importance of various sections to give you their interpretation of the music. This posses an obvious difficulty for an orchestra accompanying film. The conductor needs to be sure they have the right pace and are hitting the appropriate marks. The way this seemed to work was quite ingenious. The conductor not only had the score in front of him, but also a large screen with a special version of the film. On the screen, various timing stripes would scroll across the screen to help him keep time. At certain points, big circles or green stripes would flash up which seemed to indicate changes in tempo and as the piece was about to finish, the colour of the stripes changed to help him finish bang on the end of the film. It was pretty amazing how well this worked with the orchestra almost always finishing right on time.

The concert lasted about two hours with a 20 minute break in middle. The first half of the concert covered the rise of ‘Darth Vadar’ (i.e. the Phantom Menace, Attack and Revenge). The second half of the concert focused on the rebellion and the ‘redemption of Anakin). Although most Star Wars fans who are my age, do not rate the first three films as the pinnacle of series, one thing you have to admit is that some of the music in Phantom was pretty awesome. The highlight of the concert was hearing ‘Darth Maul’s’ theme with full choir. It’s my favourite piece of music from all the films and live it was excellent.

This is one of those odd reviews. If you don’t like Star Wars, there is no reason to go to this concert. Williams’ music isn’t good enough to stand on it’s own within a traditional classical concert venue. However, if you’re a big Star Wars fan, you will enjoy this concert.

Photos from the concert on Flickr

The O2 isn’t the best venue in the world. So I arrived early to get to the front.

For a arena gig, I was surprised to only see one support act. A Glaswegian band called the Hip Parade.

Their Myspace page has them listed as ‘pop punk’ and they featured on the excellent Channel 4 show ‘Orange Unsigned Act’. According to Wikipedia, they came second. (I watched the programme but can’t remember them)

As a support act they were a breathe of fresh air. They breezed onto the stage and did their best to make the experience enjoyable for us and themselves. There was nothing in their music to suggest that they will make it big. They managed to get the crowd to join in one song and the lead singer has the presence to hold the audience, so you never know, they could end up being the next Stereophonics.

After a brief delay, the Stereophonics entered the stage. Over the next 90 minutes, they blasted through their hits from all their albums.

The only time I’ve seen the Stereos is on TV. Kelly always seems to have a strong, rich voice and live his voice is even better.

The Stereophonics have a rich, arena friendly back catalogue. From crowd pleasing numbers such as ‘Have a nice day’, to the bands own favourite, Dakota, every song feels like it should be played in an arena (or stadium). The songs from ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ fell in amongst the old numbers sounding as confident as any of the classic numbers and ‘She’s Alright (She’s with me)’ is clearly a crowd pleaser that will feature in many of the Stereophonics encores over the next few years.

Overall, the night was very enjoyable. The only real issue was that the Stereophonics didn’t play their excellent version of ‘Handbags and Gladrags’, which I have to admit, I was looking forward to hearing.

Flickr Photos

Taste in Men

Follow the cops back home

Photos