1973-July + 1974-August Led Zeppelin The Song Remains The Same Track Listing: 1 ..Mob Rubout 2 ..Mob Town Credits 3 ..Country Life ('Autumn Lake') 4 Bron-Yr-Aur 5 Rock and Roll 6 Black Dog 7 Since I've Been Loving You 8 No Quarter 9 ..Who's Responsible? 10 The Song Remains the Same 11 The Rain Song 12 ..Fire and Sword 13 ..Capturing the Castle 14 ..Not Quite Backstage Pass 15 Dazed and Confused 16 ..Strung Out 17 ..Magic in the Night 18 ..Gate Crasher 19 ..No Comment 20 Stairway to Heaven 21 Moby Dick 22 ..Country Squire Bonham 23 Heartbreaker 24 ..Grand Theft 25 Whole Lotta Love 26 ..End Credits (w/ Stairway to Heaven) ************************************************************** Review taken from AllExperts The Song Remains the Same is a concert film by the British blues/rock band Led Zeppelin. The recording of the film took place during a 3-night concert stand at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1973 during the band's Houses of the Holy tour. The film premiered on October 21, 1976 at Cinema I in New York. The video of the film was released on October 25, 1990 and the DVD was released on December 31, 1999. Since late 1969, Led Zeppelin had been planning on filming one of their live performances for a projected movie documenting the band. Peter Grant believed Led Zeppelin would be better served on the big screen rather than television because the sound quality of television he regarded as inadequate. The first attempt was the filming of Led Zeppelin's Royal Albert Hall performance on January 9, 1970. Film-makers Peter Whitehead and Stanley Dorfman were commissioned, however the resultant film was shot using indifferent lighting so it was canned (This footage later turning up on the 2003 release Led Zeppelin. Another attempt was organised for the outdoor Bath Festival on June 28, 1970, but again what little footage that was filmed was deemed unsatisfactory.) On the morning of July 20 1973, Jimmy Page and Peter Grant made contact with Joe Massot, who had previously directed George Harrison's Wonderwall. Massot agreed to film the band on the last leg of 1973 summer tour of the United States. A crew was finally assembled in time for Led Zeppelin's last leg of the tour starting on July 23, 1973 in Baltimore. Massot decided however to film the concert performances at Madison Square Garden on the nights of July 27, 28, and 29 1973. Both the fans and the band regard these nights of the tour as "average". In an effort to show the individual personalities in the band, footage of each band member in their own real world and fantasy world would also be included backed with a favoured song. The film would be entirely financed by the band and shot on 35mm with a 24-track quadraphonic sound recording. The live footage in the US alone cost $85,000. Some sequences are as follows: * Peter Grant and Richard Cole were filmed as hitmen driving towards Hammerwood Park estate in Sussex in a 1928 Pierce Arrow car. Roy Harper also makes an uncredited guest appearance as one of the "greedy millionaires" portrayed at a business meeting of multi-national corporations. Massot envisioned Grant and Cole in the hitmen roles, having to deal with the tough business decisions they had to make on behalf of the band. Grant's berating of concert staff over pirated merchandise and the gate crasher scene was filmed backstage at the Baltimore Civic Centre on July 23. The black limousines and skyscraper scene was also recorded during their journey to the Civic Centre. At 7:15pm on July 29, 1973, it was noticed $203,000 in cash from ticket receipts, was missing from a safety deposit box at the Drake Hotel, New York. Scenes from a television press conference interviewing Grant on the missing cash was included. The money was never recovered and no-one was charged. * John Paul Jones was filmed first at home with his wife Maureen, and reading Jack and the Beanstalk to his two daughters, Tamara and Jacinda, before receiving a call to join the band on their American concert. His fantasy sequence involved a reinterpretation of the film Doctor Syn, a masked gentleman known as The Scarecrow who travels at night on horseback with three others and returns home to Sussex, an ordinary family man. The three other horsemen with him is a reference to the other band members. Filmed in October 1973. Thematic music: "No Quarter". * Robert Plant relaxing on his Welsh country farm, known as Jennings farm, with his wife Maureen, and children Karac and Carmen. His fantasy sequence involves him being a knight rescuing a fair maiden, who is a symbolic representation for his vision of the ideal - his personal search for the Holy Grail. Scenes from the sword fight were filmed at Raglan Castle in Wales while the sailing, horseback riding and beach scenes were shot at Cardigan Bay near Aberystwyth, in October 1973. Thematic music: "The Song Remains the Same" and "The Rain Song". * Jimmy Page sitting by a lake next to his 18th century manor at Plumpton, Sussex, playing a hurdy gurdy. The tune played is called "Autumn Lake" and the scene was filmed in October 1973. Page's fantasy role involved climbing up the face of a snow capped mountain near Boleskine House, Loch Ness during the nights of a full moon on December 10 and 11, 1973. The concept being a man fighting his way to the top, only to be greeted by Father Time, a cinematic representation of the hermit on the untitled fourth album. Thematic music: "Dazed and Confused". * John Bonham with his wife Pat and son Jason Bonham on their country estate, The Old Hyde farm in Worcestershire. The game of pool was shot at The Old Hyde hotel and the Harley-Davidson-Harley riding near Blackpool. His fantasy sequence is the most straight forward of all the members, with Bonham drag racing an AA Fueler at 260mph at Santa Pod Speedway in California, in October 1973. Thematic music: "Moby Dick". Unhappy with the progress of the film, Peter Grant had Joe Massot removed from the project and Australian director Peter Clifton was hired in his place. Clifton, in an effort to complete some close-ups and distance footage of the band members, assembled Led Zeppelin at Shepperton Studios in August 1974, with a mock-up of the Madison Square Garden stage. The bulk of the live sequence seen in the film however was from the 1973 concerts. A plan to shoot additional footage on the band's Autumn 1975 U.S. tour was abandoned due to Plant's car crash in Rhodes. The film was finally completed by early 1976, 18 months behind schedule and over-budget. Peter Grant later quipped "It was the most expensive home movie ever made". It grossed $200,000 in its first week at the box office. Premiered October 21, 1976 at Cinema I in New York Released October 25, 1990 (video) December 31, 1999 (DVD) Recorded July 27, July 28 and July 29, 1973 at Madison Square Garden, New York August 1974 at Shepperton Studios in Shepperton, England Music producer Jimmy Page Genre Hard rock Length 137 min (film) 132 min + extras (DVD) Record label Swan Song Records ************************************************************** Trivia taken from Wikipedia (which may have come from another source) For their three New York performances, the band members wore exactly the same clothes to facilitate seamless editing of the film, except for John Paul Jones who wore three different sets of attire on each of these nights. That is why his clothes change between cuts throughout certain songs. In an interview from 1997 Jones said that the reason he didn't wear the same stage clothes was that he asked the crew if they would be filming on those nights and was told no. "I'd think 'not to worry, I'll save the shirt I wore the previous night for the next filming'. Then what would happen is that I'd get onstage and see the cameras ready to roll." The Song Remains the Same" is also a Led Zeppelin song from their 1973 album Houses of the Holy. It is the first track on the album, and is performed by the band in the film. The female passenger wearing a scarf with Peter Grant driving on a country road is his wife, Gloria. Roy Harper is one of the slain corporate goons at the beginning of the film. When it was agreed that the band would meet at Shepparton Studios in 1974 for filming, Jones had recently had his hair cut short, so he had to wear a wig. The scenes of police chasing a half-naked intruder and of Grant berating the promoter for receiving kickbacks were both shot at the Baltimore Civic Center on July 23, 1973. The promoter is believed to be Larry Vaughan. The footage of the band arriving at the airport in their private jet airliner, The Starship, and travelling in the motor cavalcade to the concert was filmed in Pittsburgh, before their show at Three Rivers Stadium on July 24, 1973. Some unused backstage shots at Baltimore and at Pittsburgh later found their way into the promotional video for "Travelling Riverside Blues", released in 1990. Led Zeppelin's motor cavalcade arriving at Three Rivers Stadium. The footage was not included in The Song Remains The Same, but found its way into the 1990 promotional clip for "Travelling Riverside Blues"In the scene where Peter Grant is driven to the police station to be questioned about the theft from the safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel, he has his arm outside the police car. In an interview conducted in 1989, he explained the reason he wasn't handcuffed was that the policeman driving the car used to be a drummer in a semi-professional band which had supported The Yardbirds on one of its US college tours in the late-1960s. Grant had at the time been manager of The Yardbirds. The money stolen from the safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel was never recovered and no-one has ever been charged. The woman seen in close-up during "Since I've Been Loving You" is rumored to be Maureen Plant's younger sister, though this has not been verified. For Peter Grant's fantasy sequence, Massot originally shot him walking a cameraman around a collection of antique cars, but this footage was quickly abandoned. In 1976 a midnight screening of the film was organised by Atlantic Records prior to its release, at which label president Ahmet Ertegun reportedly fell asleep. The part in the film during "Dazed and Confused" when the camera zooms into Jimmy's eyes and cuts to the scene when the concert intruder is chased by the policeman was Peter Grant's idea. In the scene when Peter Grant berates the promoter for allowing the selling of pirate posters, he uses the f*** and c*** words eighteen times. When Warner Brothers approved the film they did so on the proviso that these words be 'bleeped' out. Clifton took the optical print and bleeped the words, meaning the words were inaudible and the film was given an appropriate rating. However, on every other print the words were retained and were fully audible. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant during Led Zeppelin's performance of "Dazed and Confused" at Baltimore Civic CenterThe plans to film the shows at Baltimore Civic Center were threatened when the local trades union tried to block the British film crew from working. The band's attorneys negotiated with the union and the crew was eventually allowed to film the concerts. 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." For his fantasy sequence, Jones initially wished to use footage from the original Doctor Syn film, but was prevented from doing so as this film was owned by Disney. After Massot was fired as director he was offered a few thousand pounds and Peter Grant sent someone to his house to collect the film. However, he had hidden the film elsewhere and so instead an expensive editing machine owned by Massot was taken. Massot served a writ, leading to a period of stalemate which was finally broken when Grant and Led Zeppelin's lawyer Steve Weiss agreed to pay Massot the money he was owed, after which he delivered to film to the band. Massot was not invited to attend the premiere of the film at Baltimore but he attended anyway, buying a ticket from a scalper outside the theatre. The band also had a major falling out with Peter Clifton after the completion of the film. Suspecting that he had 'stolen' negatives of the film, Peter Grant ordered that his house be searched. They did find some footage, but this turned out to be a collection of the best 'home movie' footage which Clifton had intended to give to the band members as a gift. Clifton was also annoyed at the decision to remove from the film's credits the names of all the people who had worked on editing, make up and effects. Unlike Massot, however, Clifton was invited to both the New York and London premieres of the film. For its New York premiere, Cinema I was equipped with a qudrophonic sound system hired from Showco in Dallas. For the West Coast premieres, no such audio boosting was employed. These premieres, along with the London premiere, were attended by the members of the band. In an interview he gave with New Musical Express in November 1976, Page stated that "The Song Remains The Same is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up." Songs performed by the group at the three Baltimore Civic Center concerts but not included in the film include "Celebration Day", "The Ocean", "Misty Mountain Hop", "Communication Breakdown" and "Thank You". Some of these songs were included on the soundtrack album of the film and, later, on the Led Zeppelin DVD.