Few bands seem as unreal as Led Zeppelin. Part of this is down to 50 years of accumulated mythology: long-haired Viking gods arrived from Valhalla to storm the stairway to heaven. But their status as an untouchable, elevated musical entity is also down to the cloak of enigma they wrapped themselves in: no official singles, few interviews, just four figures onstage, bathed in blue light. Even now, 45 years after they split and with the surviving members in their late 70s and early 80s, there’s something otherworldly about Led Zeppelin.
The first official Zeppelin documentary (sorry, The Song Remains The Same isn’t a documentary), Becoming Led Zeppelin strips away some, if not all, of that mystique. By focusing on the band’s first two years, it pulls Zeppelin down from rock’n’roll’s Mount Rushmore and presents them as they really were: an astoundingly powerful and legitimately groundbreaking band. Zeppelin fans will know this story by heart via countless books and magazine articles, but watching and hearing it brought to life is a different matter
