Characters: n/a
Writing: C+
Plot: n/a
Pacing: B
Poignancy: B-
Fact: Led Zeppelin is the greatest band of all time. There are very few bands that I would be interested in reading a book-length account of, much less a book focused specifically on one tour, but I would read just about anything detailing Zeppelin's zany shenanigans. At the peak of their power, they weren't just the most popular, highest-selling band in the world — they crafted a cult-like mystique around themselves, birthing bizarre urban legends, rumors of black magic and deals with the devil. The mass media hated them, journalists feared them, and interviews were rare. It didn't matter that Rolling Stone refused to acknowledge their existence for six years — Zeppelin had no trouble selling out massive coliseums in a matter of minutes.
By the release of Physical Graffiti in 1975, however, it was hard to ignore Zeppelin's dominating presence, and the American media started paying attention. Stephen Davis — a music journalist who, by his own admission, was only passingly familiar with Zeppelin at the time — wanted in. He got in, of course, flying around with Zeppelin in the Starship on their rocky-but-pivotal American 1975 winter tour. Unfortunately, LZ-'75 isn't the first thing he's written as a result of those experiences. In fact, it's the third, but after churning out an article and another book, he somehow managed to lose most of his notes from the tour. When Davis rediscovered them a few years ago (and obviously, realized how much money he could make by milking another book out of them), he decided to turn them into LZ-'75.
Judging by the reviews on Amazon, there's not much here that isn't covered by other Zeppelin biographies, or even in Davis' other pieces. I haven't read any other Zeppelin accounts, so that wasn't a dealbreaker for me, but LZ-'75 is certainly on the anemic side. Davis was granted fairly extensive backstage access, and writes about the band with appropriate reverence and knowledge. Yet it's clear that Davis was never really an insider. He writes like a journalist, and only ever had the access of a journalist. Though he adds some personal backstory, musings and scant analysis, most of the narrative is taken up by descriptions of Zeppelin's performances. Reading about shows is nowhere near as exciting as experiencing them, however, and after some early-tour drama and set-backs, each performance begins to sound fairly redundant. Davis delves deep into his thesaurus and does an admirable job of describing each song in a dozen different ways, but he's not a great music writer, and the strain shows by the end. As a product of the 70's, Davis' prose (or maybe Davis himself) can get a little hammy, and most of the time he simply tries too hard. It's not the 70's anymore, and though it's fun to see that energy captured in moments, too much of it makes LZ-'75 read as sensational rather than revealing. Personally, I was never close to bored, but this is definitely one for fans of the band — aficionados of rock'n'roll history can probably find more thorough accounts.
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