+2 It's always a bit surreal to see scenes such as these in a place you know well - I've seen at least 4 concerts at this place when I lived in the UK. I'm heartbroken that people who were going to enjoy a concert have this horror right afterward. Such a waste...

I Am Woman - Helen Reddy

Arc of a Diver - Steve Winwood

Heart of Gold - Neil Young

One Of My Turns - Pink Floyd

Those Days - Mary Hopkin

"Dazed and Confused" from TSRTS Blu-Ray - just lovely!

Yes - your last statement is spot on (what you wrote is all good, but I wanted to expand a bit on the last comment you made. There are certain bands that can take a genre/sub-genre of music and somehow make it relatable to a much wider audience. LZ definitely made the music that was, rightly or wrongly, dubbed "heavy metal" much more popular. They didn't invent blues-influenced hard rock (the blues movement in the UK had already been around for years - JP himself was a veteran of it, as were RP and JB to a lesser degree), but they made that variety of music more desirable than any other band - yes, Hendrix and Cream prepared the path for them, but LZ made such music their own. You can even see the same phenomenon in the 90's. Back in the late-80s/early-90s, industrial music was a big underground movement, but it never would have made it to Main Street on its own. However, Trent Reznor comes out with Nine Inch Nails and, all of a sudden, music which had no hope of ever having mass appeal suddenly did. Even Bowie was influenced by that. As George Martin used to say about the impact of The Beatles and why it happened, he would simply say that their timing was right. Had they arrived on the music scene a couple of years earlier or later, they most likely wouldn't have had the same wide reach in their popularity. Led Zeppelin's timing was right too - Cream had just ended and Hendrix was just about to go to The Great Gig In The Sky. They filled the vacuum created by those two acts not being around anymore, and then they took the seed idea further.

I like that song! (Nice nod to Elizabeth Montgomery with your avatar as well!) Dancing Days - Led Zeppelin

Thank you! I was hoping I didn't come across as too over-the-top, but I really think the points I mentioned were revolutionary at the time. (Sabbath and Purple were two of the companion bands I was subliminally referring to above.) When a fan describes what they like about their favorite acts, they can sound like they are deifying them - I don't deify them, but I am in awe of the music they made. The fact that it was created by regular guys who just worked well together makes their accomplishments all the more extraordinary. (I'm also a bit in awe of how long they were able to create great albums and play live so well in spite of various road accidents, massive drinking & drug use, etc. Yes, it caught up with them bitterly in 1980, but how many bands would have expired in a much shorter time having gone through the same experiences as LZ?)

The Enemy God Dances With The Black Spirits - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

Part 2 to my response just given above... They also changed music in that they arrived at the precise moment that music changed in the late 60's - I would go even further and say that they were the main group that caused this change. I'll explain. Before the New Yardbirds, a lot of the most popular bands were members (at least tangentially) of the hippie movement who often espoused a hippie philosophy - a lot of exploration of peace, love, and drugs and their effects (it was the 60's after all) with bands from California and Swingin' London. Their focus was mostly collective - i.e., striving towards a mass enlightenment of sorts exploring these topics through music. Robert was (and most probably still is) an adherent of that mindset - the lyrics of songs like "The Rover" are proof. However, at their inception, LZ in their lyrics transformed the desire for love from the collective to the individual in a very pronounced fashion - even the instrumentation in the songs displayed this new focus. Music at the time was mostly "yin"; LZ (and a few others becoming popular at the same time or shortly thereafter) delivered a whole lotta yang... The singing, the guitar-playing, and the drumming were all very overtly sensual - that hadn't happened before. This doesn't mean it was all loud, but it was all passionate, even the quieter songs. This was why those who thought that music should be like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, or The Beatles were slow to warm to LZ (if they ever did warm to them). This is also one of the few bits that Stephen Davis got right in "Hammer of the Gods", i.e., it was the younger siblings of those who were fans of the "flower power" bands that were LZ's most ardent fans. Tastes change in societies over time, and LZ arrived during (and, in my opinion, helped actively initiate) the shift away from hippie ideals being overtly expressed in the lyrics of songs to lyrics of a more individualized foundation. They also, without actively seeking it, became the blueprint for hard rock bands which followed. Aerosmith should pay half of their royalties to LZ, Van Halen couldn't have imitated them any more closely (at least on the surface, less so in the music) - hell, even Def Leppard's name is a nod to LZ. So, all in all, they had many effects on the future progression of music.

In The Mood - Robert Plant

In The Dark - Billy Squier

In addition to the replies above, JP was also an innovator (or at least an "improver") in how songs were recorded in the studio. His use of distance miking (i.e., miking for a particular instrument up close and also further away in the recording studio to capture both immediate and ambient sound) is, IMHO, one of LZ's greatest contributions to recording music. Again, I don't think he invented this technique, but his particular variety of it is one of the key ingredients as to why Led Zeppelin songs sound so majestic. I don't know any other band that has the same feel in its recorded music. Of course, another thing that made them such a remarkable band was their ability to take their already great songs and make them sound even more awe-inspiring live. Most songs by professional musicians, if the band is any good, will have more of an impact live than in the studio; however, not every band has the sonic alchemy to improvise on a regular basis in performance and also have those improvisations come off so impressively - that only happens with a select few bands. This is one of the reasons why the trading community is so obsessed with getting any live recording of the band - there was always something unique and special about an LZ show. Now, of course, not every show was a blinder - they're human beings after all and can have off-days just like anyone else - but, their on-days were absolutely superlative and gave people joy they couldn't get any other way.

Rock of Ages - Def Leppard

Rock and Roll - The Velvet Underground

I've Got A Feeling - The Beatles

You've Got A Friend - James Taylor

Song For a Friend - Jason Mraz

Your Song - Elton John

Bad Case Of Loving You - Robert Palmer

Now Be Thankful - Fairport Convention

Come Together - The Beatles

Do That To Me One More Time - Captain & Tennille https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry4ngf766N0