Friday, January 9, 2009

Celebratin'... Jimmy Page

For a while, it looked like Jimmy Page was going to ruin Led Zeppelin. But, mercifully, the idea of touring as "Led Zeppelin" without Robert Plant on vocals seemed to have been permanently scuttled. Jimmy Page's manager Peter Mensch is quoted in Music Radar saying, "Led Zeppelin are over! If you didn't see them in 2007, you missed them."

That's a relief. Zeppelin might be the only band of the album-rock era that hasn't destroyed their legacy on endless "farewell" tours, with fewer and few original members each time. With memories of the Led Zep we loved from "Hammer of the Gods" still in tact, we can wholeheartedly wish Jimmy Page a Happy 65th Birthday.

Here are ten solid, unrelenting minutes of nothing but Page guitar solos. These all go to 11.