Bernard MacMahon
Becoming Led Zeppelin

Released quickly (only 3 days) in Italian cinemas on February 27th, "Becoming Led Zeppelin" directed by Bernard MacMahon is now available on the Prime Video platform. I confess that I had been waiting for this moment ever since the film was premiered at the Venice Festival in 2021. The reason is not only due to the historic importance of such a rock band but mainly because of my personal intention to verify the truth of what a journalist (whose name I can't remember) wrote at the time, stating that the work was not exactly on theme. And yet, as the title already explicitly states, becoming someone or something requires an evolutionary process articulated in several stages. Has anyone ever seen (and not just in the case of Led Zeppelin) an immediate and inexplicable epiphany in the eyes of the public, as if it were the so-called mushroom sprouting from the ground of a forest (even this is not as immediate and magical as it seems)?

But it's well known that not all reporters can fully understand what they observe and later report (in the musical field, someone on Debaser recalled the unfounded critique formulated by the journalist Aspesi after watching one of Lucio Battisti's first performances). And alas, not understanding the structure of "Becoming Led Zeppelin" well is just yet another blunder. In fact, over just more than 2 hours, director MacMahon scrupulously and precisely presents the evolutionary path of the four members of the great group from their youth until the release of Led Zeppelin's second album and their unforgettable concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in January 1970.

Rich with interviews with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones, along with excerpts from the only radio interview given by John Bonham (a colossal drummer and a generally shy and reserved man), the documentary reminds us, should we have forgotten, that the chemistry of Led Zeppelin's success was simply the passion of the four in composing and performing blues-derived music at maximum volume, surpassing contemporary groups and soloists of great respect (and I'm not going to name names here; they shouldn't be unknown to Debaser users). There's therefore no room for gossip about the dissolute lives of typical rock stars, simply because the justly earned success of the four well-known musicians was the result of a lot of hard graft. And certain facts were completely unknown to me, like the participation of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones (both session men for many British groups in the sixties) in the recording of the track "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey for the soundtrack of the eponymous film in the James Bond saga.

When Jimmy Page then considered founding a group on the ashes of the Yardbirds, of which he had been a part until 1968, it was thanks to a series of fortunate combinations that the quartet formed as we have known them. And it is significant that, thanks to the intercession of a shrewd talent scout like Peter Grant, the Led Zeppelin first established themselves in the USA, where they signed a good contract with the major Atlantic, before making a name for themselves in their British homeland.

As is clearly visible and audible in various concert footage, up until early 1970, attending their performances was a unique and rare experience, able to create a sort of energetic and perhaps mystical symbiosis between the musicians on stage and the audience in the hall. Led Zeppelin put their soul into it and didn't just accurately perform their compositions. The propensity to improvise gave rise to long jam sessions of over 3 or 4 hours starting from already substantial tracks like "Dazed and Confused," "Communication Breakdown," "Baby I'm Gonna Leave You" just to name a few, compared to which what Bruce Springsteen (just to mention) later performed in terms of improvisations in his concerts doesn't hold up to the same level.

In short, an electrifying experience that has the gift of taking us back to times when rock was not at all standardized and predictable. Then, of course, the exhilarating story of Led Zeppelin continued throughout the seventies and ended tragically with the sudden death of John Bonham. Continuing without him would have made no sense, and who knows if the skilled director MacMahon doesn't harbor the idea of also telling about that second phase of the group. In the meantime, I would strongly invite certain journalists to pay more attention to what they see and report, because a blunder could be just around the corner...