Last night Naners and I attended the theatrical premier of Led Zeppelin’s “Celebration Day.” If you don’t know, “Celebration Day” is a new concert-film that showcases the concert that Led Zeppelin reunited for on Dec. 10, 2007 with Jason Bonham (original drummer John Bonham’s son) to pay homage to the late Ahmet Ertegün, who was the founder and President of Atlantic Records.
People began getting a little rowdy after a late start and the fact that the lights remained on while the show was starting. The lights remained on through the intro all the way through the halfway point of the second song. They finally heard the cries of the fans in the theater and the lights came down only to bring on more cries about the quiet sound. These kinds of things don’t go over very well for fans of one of the heaviest bands of all time. Lots of screams of “Start it over!,” “Turn it up!,” “Louder… LOUDER!,” and the like began to emerge. Eventually a pause symbol and a tracking bar appear on screen. Great.
Well, apparently the theater people heard all of the many cries for satisfaction. They restarted the whole shebang and it was plenty loud this time. Sure, there were a few more hiccups as the night went on. Another pause here, a few quick sound outages there and before you knew it the concert had come to an end.
Overall it was a pretty good experience and it’s going to be the closest any of us get to actually seeing them live again. I’m sure this will be a new addition to Nancy’s collection of Led Zeppelin goodies once it comes out on BluRay on Nov. 19. I’m glad I went with her and I look forward to seeing some of the songs again from the comfort of my own couch.
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