[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_code module_class=”custom-cat” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
The three surviving members, plus newly unearthed John Bonham interview, tell the story of Led Zeppelin\u2019s ascent to glory.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-main” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Words by Andrew Perry<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/02\/Becoming-Led-Zeppelin-Official-Poster-4×5-IMAX-FEBRUARY-5-6-CINEMAS-EVERYWHERE-FEB-7.jpg” title_text=”Becoming Led Zeppelin – Official Poster – 4×5 – IMAX FEBRUARY 5 & 6, CINEMAS EVERYWHERE FEB 7″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Becoming Led Zeppelin<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n In the wake of blockbuster biopics on Freddie, Jimi and two Bobs (Dylan and Marley), this straight-down-the-line two-hour \u2018rockumentary\u2019 on the rise of another iconic entity from rock\u2019s golden age may seem, on paper, a rather old-fashioned and even scholarly method of conjuring that explosive era \u2013 and band \u2013 back to life, at 65 years\u2019 distance.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n To construe as a bad omen that none the three surviving members who were interviewed at length for Becoming Led Zeppelin were present at either of the film\u2019s premiers would be to misread the runes in the bigger picture. At least one of them (singer Robert Plant), and possibly a second (bassist John Paul Jones), have been distancing themselves from Zeppelin as a whole ever since the mid-\u201980s. After they reunited for just that one Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at London\u2019s O2 Arena on December 10, 2007, inner politics have only become more frictional between these two and guitarist Jimmy Page, who might possibly resent having to curate the band\u2019s legacy single-handedly, benefitting all.<\/p>\n It doubtless took some negotiating for director Bernard MacMahon (American Epic) to get all three on board; cannily, he chose to focus on the fun part, the story of their formative years, how busy London sessioneers Page and Jones fortuitously encountered stray Midlanders Plant and his drummer mate, John Bonham, and the four together created electrifying progressive blues, all but upping sticks from sniffy Britain to conquer the distant dreamland of America in a breathless two-year ascent.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a familiar narrative arc: that meteoric passage from four separate childhoods of post-war rations and blues-import obsession leading to alchemical musical bonding and success via exhaustive schlepping around Stateside highways. It\u2019s told, however, perhaps surprisingly, with considerable enthusiasm, fondness and colour, and in all fairness, it could easily (indeed, tolerably!) have been done in far more nerdy detail.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Jones, for instance, a prodigious talent from a choral background, discreetly whips through a list of almost every major British \u201960s pop act whose records he played on, wryly concluding, \u201cJust never The Beatles.\u201d Fellow late-\u201960s gun-for-hire Page briefly outlines how he was similarly ubiquitous in mid-\u201960s London studios, and was feeling \u201cphysically sick\u201d arranging muzak sessions when Jeff Beck invited him into the Yardbirds, then quit, leaving him to deal with the frustration of having their long-form explorations pared down into seven-inch pop ditties. When that band went belly-up on the West Coast, Page sought out a new line-up alongside Jones to indulge those excesses, with new manager Peter Grant cracking the whip for albums-only creative control.<\/p>\n Enter Plant, virtually itinerant, he amusingly recalls, the wild card chancing his arm in the capital \u201cwith a brown suitcase and some penicillin\u201d. He manages to recruit Bonham against wife Pat\u2019s better advice and \u2013 kaboom! \u2013 their chemistry on first rehearsing Johnny Burnette\u2019s Train Kept A-Rollin\u2019 at Page\u2019s Pangbourne boathouse is instantaneous, volcanic.<\/p>\n The sheer excitement of their collective self-discovery is brilliantly conveyed via the first footage, a 12-minute How Many More Times captured barely a month later, on March 17, 1969, from Danish TV\u2019s Gladsaxe Teen Club. Though most Zepheads will\u2019ve seen the complete 32-minute performance many times before, they shouldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity to experience its climactic piece immersively in a theatre at substantial volume and to lose their marbles all over again. It\u2019s simply magnificent.<\/p>\n Other Led Zeppelin I tunes, including a stretched-out, violin-bowing Dazed And Confused, show the stunned disbelief they were initially greeted with \u2013 at another Euro TV show, incredibly, a bespectacled mum worriedly tries to pacify her babe-in-arms, howling in distress without ear defenders. As well as such potently restored clips, the other ace up Becoming Led Zeppelin\u2019s sleeve is an unheard audio interview with Bonham, which airs as we watch each member hearing it for the first time. Misty-eyed, they smile as \u2018Bonzo\u2019\u2019s Brummie burr gushes about their formation as \u201clike a gift from heaven\u201d, and their unshakable four-way friendship, soldered as they took on the world together. In turn, Jones reveals how he \u201cwas in love with John\u2019s right foot [i.e. the one that pummelled the bass-drum pedal] \u2013 I learnt to give it space.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n As they undertake successive US tours, recording Led Zeppelin II on the hoof, Plant aptly marvels at how they showed \u201cno fatigue, just power and energy\u201d, but we learn also of the testing human side, as all bar Page were concurrently starting families at home. Their prize, their first gold disc, landed on the same day as the heroic Apollo 11 astronauts touched back down from the first moon landing. \u201cWhat next, after that?\u201d shrugs Plant. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, does it?\u201d<\/p>\n True, the movie could quite comfortably finish there at around 100 minutes, but that would be to lose unseen footage from Bath Festival, and then a signifier of UK acceptance at January \u201970\u2019s triumphant homecoming at the Albert Hall. Now, they\u2019ve \u2018become\u2019 Led Zeppelin, and only some persistently sniffy reviewers can dispute their majesty.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s a mainstream rock saga founded on familiar tropes, but it would take a cold heart not to be moved by this version of it, told proudly by protagonists in their twilight years. Those uninterested in Chicago blues derivations and backstories can still revel in 40-odd minutes of incomparably kinetic footage. Those who seek the mid-\u201970s squalor of LA drugs, groupies and mud sharks, the agony of Plant\u2019s car-crash, the death of his child and ultimate loss of his bestie Bonham \u2013 all the stuff that ruined the dream \u2013 will surely never get them from Page, Plant and Jones\u2019 mouths now.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect Being Led Zeppelin or indeed Leaving Led Zeppelin any time soon, then. Instead, just bask in this wonderful slice of history written by the winners, an ascent as rip-roaringly exciting and properly loud as any in the classic-rock pantheon.<\/p>\n Becoming Led Zeppelin is in UK cinemas from February 7.<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The three surviving members, plus newly unearthed John Bonham interview, tell the story of Led Zeppelin\u2019s ascent to glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2097,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions\/2097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“An ascent as rip-roaringly exciting and properly loud as any in the classic-rock pantheon\u2026”<\/h2>\n
“Yes, it\u2019s a mainstream rock saga founded on familiar tropes, but it would take a cold heart not to be moved by this version of it\u2026”<\/h2>\n