Spoken like a man who has never seen an Everton game in his life.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give The Nightfly a go. It has come up on my Amazon recommendations but I'm always a bit scared to dip my toe in the water with 80s stuff because the production tends to be so bad (generally speaking).

Gutted, I had to listen to The Royal Scam last night, there is so much going on in those songs. Pretty much everything they did in the 70s was pure class, I've not really listened to the stuff from Goucho onwards.

I have to say I find them to be absolutely awful. I'm not surprised there are only about 7 or 8 people like them on a Led Zeppelin forum, one band of geniuses, another who sound like a group of teenagers picking up musical instruments for the first time. I usually have to leave the pub when Blitzkrieg Bop comes on the Jukebox, what a fucking racket.

Just to add that I wasn't having a go at anyone, it's just something that you see in the tabloid papers here, a picture of someone getting out of a car & the caption will say, "insert name looking miserable.", do these journalists do a star jump out of their car with a giant smile on their faces? People don't go around smiling all the time & still photographs tends to reflect this. I'm sure John Bonham had some nice moments with his family and with the band in 1980 whatever else was going on in his head. Such a terrible loss really, I never fail to break down a wee bit when I read about his death.

I always laugh when I see people drawing so much information from a still picture, you can take a picture of the happiest person at the wrong moment & they can look fraught with worry. I'm not saying Bonham didn't have his problems or demons, he clearly did and he did look older than his years (the drink does that to people), however, I don't see the point in studying a picture to the nth degree to attempt to ascertain what was going on at that point in time. We all know he was having trouble getting round his kit towards the end, it's more than likely that he was trying pretty hard to lose weight in order to remedy that. John Bonham had his ups and downs like a lot of people and died as a result of an accident. The remaining members of the band have kept a lid on things out of respect for his family and themselves I would guess and hats off to them.

Football Focus is still on. I see Jose 'other clubs are spending too much money' Mourinho is going to spunk another £40m on Matic this week.

He had those Adidas trainers on in Milan (picture below) so it could very well be.

Well if the choices are:- 1) Go on the road with the World's greatest rock band & enjoy all the excesses of sex, drugs & rock'n'roll or, 2) Stay in London & sit behind a desk pushing pens all day I know which one I would be going for.

What he said, it's clearly a pastiche of the early rock'n'roll stuff Page & Plant loved so much. I love Candy Store Rock, it never fails to raise a smile in my house. Presence is a great album, in fact these days I find it's the Zeppelin studio album I go back to most (probably because I've listened to the first six so much).

Yeah, I have the original CD, to be honest I hadn't listened to it for a few years before the remastered one came out and not since. I do remember a difference in No Quarter (probably because it's my favourite song on the LP).

The sound on it is great in my opinion though. I don't listen to many bootlegs either & I have to say I really enjoy it as I don't really know what's been cut out. Having said that, I'm never entirely sure why he feels the need to chop & change so much, they were such a great live band.

I would be out of there as well, no sign of any HP sauce on that table so they can fuck off with their lobster.

In A Broken Dream too is a great song too, with Python Lee Jackson. I think he was making decent enough music up until Blondes Have More Fun in 1978 although I wasn't around at the time & you can see things definitely took a bit of a nose dive around the time Smiler came out.

Focus were absolutely amazing, I have Moving Waves & Focus 3, which are both brilliant albums, I don't have the live one but I'll need to get a hold of it at some point. I saw them live in Edinburgh about three years ago, I think Van Leer (Keyboards/Vocals) & Van der Linden (Drums) were the only 'original' members but they played great & I would definitely go & see them again.

If I had to pick one track, I would probably go for Good Times Bad Times, it changed rock drumming overnight & still sounds absolutely mental nearly 50 years on. After that I would probably go for Kashmir, which is an monument of groove & restraint & Achilles Last Stand, which again is just nuts. I might be on my own here but if I had to pick an album to showcase Bonham, it would maybe be Presence, he really was on fire throughout that recording & some of it is his most inventive playing.

Agreed 100%. If only other bands had maintained their dignity the way Led Zeppelin did.

Found another one...

Actually, it's quite possibly a February '70 haircut & beard.

It's traditional grip he's using and to my eyes that looks like a 1972 hair cut.

I enjoyed your post although I think the companion disc versions of Immigrant Song & Gallows Pole are two of the most crucial ones for me, both brilliant versions.

Robert Plant talks a load of rubbish at the best of times, I'd be interested to see the quotes you're referring to though? John Bonham was known in the early days as claiming to be the best drummer in the World, he changed the face of rock drumming overnight with his drumming on the first LP, hardly a 'pub rock'-type situation. Robert Plant had a similar effect on vocalists, influencing everyone from Roger Daltrey to Geddy Lee. They may have enjoyed playing in smaller rooms (who doesn't?) but their influence on the musical World was immeasurable. I'm not sure if they're virtuosos myself but I think there's a huge grey area between being Paganini & playing bar room rock.