The Song Remains the Same is a 1976 concert film featuring the English rock band Led Zeppelin. The filming took place during the summer of 1973, during three nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with additional footage shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. The film premiered three years later on 20 October 1976 at Cinema I in New York, on 21 October 1976 at the Fox Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills, and at Warner West End Cinema in London two weeks later. It was accompanied by a soundtrack album of the same name.
Promotional materials stated that the film was "the band's special way of giving their millions of friends what they had been clamouring for – a personal and private tour of Led Zeppelin. For the first time the world has a front row seat on Led Zeppelin."
Fans drove up ticket sales, but many reviewers – as well as band members Robert Plant and John Paul Jones – disliked the film at the time of its initial release (1976), although in subsequent years critics warmed up to the movie and it now receives mostly favourable ratings from the public.
A standard DVD of the film was released on 31 December 1999. A reissue of the film, including previously unreleased footage as a bonus, was released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc on 20 November 2007, by Warner Home Video.
Background
Since late 1969, Led Zeppelin had been planning on filming one of their live performances for a projected movie documentary of the band. The group's manager, Peter Grant, believed that they would be better served by the big screen than by television, because he regarded the sound quality of the latter as unsatisfactory. In 1970, Grant arranged for the 9 January Royal Albert Hall performance to be filmed by In Concert and Top of the Pops producer and director Stanley Dorfman, and Peter Whitehead, for a proposed hour-long special for TV distribution, which was reported by Record Mirror in late January had been sold to American TV. However the band supplied a pulse feed off their mixing desk for the editing purposes but were not sufficiently happy with their performance to release the full soundtrack for use in the film. It was agreed with Dorfman that the concert would form part of a larger documentary project including the band's performance at the Bath Festival on 28 June, which was filmed by Whitehead. However, Whitehead filmed the entire Zeppelin set in Bath at the incorrect exposure and it was unusable, so the project was shelved." The Royal Albert Hall footage was later remastered and featured on the 2003 release Led Zeppelin DVD.
On the morning of 20 July 1973, during the band's concert tour of the US, Peter Grant made contact with American-born director Joe Massot. Massot was already known to Grant as he and his wife had moved into a house in Berkshire in 1970, where they made friends with their neighbours, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and his girlfriend Charlotte Martin.</blockquote>
Massot hurriedly assembled a crew in time for Led Zeppelin's last leg of the tour starting on 23 July 1973, in Baltimore. He subsequently filmed the group's three concert performances at Madison Square Garden on the nights of 27, 28, and 29 July 1973. The film was entirely financed by the band and shot on 35mm with a 24-track quadraphonic sound recording.
Original filming
thumb|upright|[[Gibson EDS-1275 used for live performances of "Stairway to Heaven" including in this film]]
The plans to film the shows at Madison Square Garden were threatened when the local trades union tried to block the British film crew from working. After the band's attorneys negotiated with the union, the crew was allowed to film the concerts.
The footage of the band arriving at the airport in their private jet airliner, The Starship, and travelling in the motorcade to the concert was filmed in Pittsburgh, before their show at Three Rivers Stadium on 24 July 1973.
As Led Zeppelin's popularity soared throughout the 1970s, Peter Grant became increasingly notorious for being brutally protective of his band and their finances; The Song Remains the Same captures one such exchange between him and a concert promoter. When Warner Bros. Pictures approved the film, they did so with the proviso that expletives would be 'bleeped' out. Peter Clifton took the optical print and removed the words, and the film was given an appropriate rating. However, on every other print, the words were retained and were fully audible. Scenes of young fans attempting to buy tickets, an unruly fan being ejected by security, and Grant berating the promoter for receiving kickbacks were all shot at the Baltimore Civic Center on 23 July 1973. Grant purportedly recommended the "Dazed and Confused" sequence wherein the camera zooms into Page's eyes and cuts to the scene.
When it was agreed that the band would meet at Shepperton Studios for filming, Jones had recently had his hair cut short, so he had to wear a wig.
In the May 2008 issue of Uncut, Page recalled the events surrounding the shooting of additional footage at Shepperton Studios:
A plan to shoot additional footage on the band's Autumn 1975 US tour was abandoned due to Plant's car crash in Rhodes, Greece. The film was particularly unsuccessful in the UK, where the band had not performed live for over two years as a result of being in tax exile. The band were thus unable to promote themselves at home, leaving them out of the public spotlight.
However, among fans the film has retained its popularity. Until the release of Led Zeppelin DVD in 2003, The Song Remains the Same was the only official live visual document that was accessible to followers of the band. It became a cult favourite at late-night movie houses,
The film has been viewed as an interesting historical document that captures the band near the peak of their popularity, showcasing the excesses of the music and show business industries in the 1970s. In a Mojo magazine review published after the film's 2007 reissue, James McNair gave the film four out of five stars and wrote:
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 40% rating based on 40 reviews with the consensus: "While its concert segments are presented with a whole lotta love, The Song Remains the Same gets trampled underfoot with its dull fantasy segments and middling insights into the band."
DVD scene listing
- Mob Rubout
- Mob Town Credits
- Country Life ("Autumn Lake")
- "Bron-Yr-Aur"
- "Rock and Roll"
- "Black Dog"
- "Since I've Been Loving You"
- "No Quarter"
- Who's Responsible?
- "The Song Remains the Same"
- "The Rain Song"
- Fire and Sword
- Capturing the Castle
- Not Quite Backstage Pass
- "Dazed and Confused"
- Strung Out
- Magic in the Night
- Gate Crasher
- No Comment
- "Stairway to Heaven"
- "Moby Dick"
- Country Squire Bonham
- "Heartbreaker"
- Grand Theft
- "Whole Lotta Love"
- End Credits (w/ "Stairway to Heaven")
Chart positions
DVD
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!Chart (2003)
! style="text-align:center;"|Peak position
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| Norwegian Music Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|1
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| Finnish Music Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|3
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| Italian FIMI Music DVD chart
| style="text-align:center;"|18
|-
| Hungarian MAHASZ Top 20 DVDs Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|1
|}
Certifications
Cast
- Jimmy Page
- Robert Plant
- John Bonham
- John Paul Jones
- Peter Grant
- Richard Cole
- Roy Harper
- Colin Rigdon
- Derek Skilton
Personnel
Led Zeppelin
- John Bonham – drums, percussion
- John Paul Jones – bass guitar, keyboards
- Jimmy Page – guitars, theremin, backing vocals, production, sound editing, mixing
- Robert Plant – vocals, tambourine
Additional personnel
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- Peter Clifton – director
- Brian Condliffe – technician
- Cameron Crowe – liner notes
- Ernie Day – camera operator
- Robert Freeman – camera operator
- David Gladwell – editor
- Peter Grant – executive producer
- Mick Hinton – technician
|
- Eddie Kramer – sound engineer
- Ian Knight – visual effects and lighting
- Benji Le Fevre – technician
- Joe Massot – director
- Shelly – special effects
- Ray Thomas – technician
- Steven Weiss – shoot trouble
- Kirby Wyatt – visual effects and lighting
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2007 reissue
On 20 November 2007, Warner Home Video released a new DVD edition of The Song Remains The Same for the first time with all fifteen songs from the original Madison Square Garden concerts.
This coincided with the reissue of the accompanying soundtrack to the film, available on CD. The DVD features newly remixed and fully remastered sound, 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound from original master tracks, and includes more than 40 minutes of added bonus material, including never-before-released performance footage of "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "Celebration Day", plus performances of "Misty Mountain Hop" and "The Ocean", a rare 1976 BBC interview with Robert Plant and Peter Grant, vintage TV footage from the Drake Hotel robbery during the New York concert stand, and a Cameron Crowe radio show. This version was released on standard DVDs as well as Blu-ray and HD DVD.
A Collector's Edition box set including a T-shirt with the original album cover, placards from the New York shows, and several glossy photographs was released as well.
Due to legal complications, the band decided not to change the video portion of the original movie for the rerelease.
References
External links
- The Garden Tapes - a study of sources of the live material and the edits for release on this film.