Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025) - 6/10

I’m a Zeppelin fan, but honestly just the music. I’m too young to have witnessed their heyday and get caught up in the mythology, but I grew up with their records, falling in love with some more than others and I can easily get lost in those riffs, lyrics, drums, my god the drums. The story behind the band though, well as a kid I didn’t really think of it. This tells that story with archive footage and interviews with the three surviving members. It’s a familiar tale though. Kids bored of button down post war Briton, enthralled by the excitement of American rock n roll. We start with Jimmy Page and his introduction to the guitar. With two supportive parents happy to indulge. John Paul Jones gets a bit rushed over in his intro, but I guess there’s an eagerness to get to the frontman. Robert Plant, transfixed by Little Richard (and who wouldn’t be) knew right away he wanted to sing. John Bonham, although passed, isn’t forgotten either and we get snippets of voice interviews that keep him involved. It’s quite slow and methodical as each member goes through their early pre-band memories. A very traditional TV style documentary. Plant and Bonham are the first to connect. Brummies spotting a shared love. But it’s Page and Jones that are getting their first taste of success as session musicians, meeting on the Goldfinger score. Page’s credits alone are pretty staggering, a who’s who of 60s British music icons, but Jones is no slouch either. Jobbing musicians, doing honest work, back when that was an option. Plant is much more the kaftan loving hippy and soon enough, Page too is looking for more freedom outside the session work. He wants to play in a band, starting with The Yardbirds. Experimenting in the scene, again with a heavy American influence, getting a feel for a deeper sound. Unconstrained, everything gets a bit more conceptual, mythical and when Page meets Plant. That’s the touch paper lit. “We knew there was something in the air”. Bonham and Jones are both reticent to begin, other commitments, family concerns, but all that is soon overcome of course and once in a room, a quarter way into the documentary, boom! Becoming Led Zeppelin keeps everything tempered though, the excitement comes through their retelling, the smiles beam as they recollect the memories. The first we see of them playing together is still under The Yardbirds name, but there’s no mistaking that sound. It’s spine tingling Zeppelin. The young Scandinavian audience don’t look quite ready for what they’re witnessing, it’s hard to comprehend now just how out there this sound was. What’s nice about Becoming is it takes its time. It’s not cut, cut, cut, keep up stuff and we only hear from the band, there’s no need for anyone else. It’s pure. The music too is allowed to breathe, songs played out in full, although sometimes accompanied by newsreel anchoring them in the events and culture of a globalised world opening up. Page is undeniably the special ingredient, not just for his guitar, but his vision for the first record and his insistence on it being sold as an album, snubbing the single obsessed culture. That sounds ambitious or cocky even for a new band, but with Page’s connections and manager Peter Grant’s help, record deals are signed. A deal that puts the band in control. Now I said it was the records that I know and love, but it’s the live performances here that cook. Watching Page play, Plant move, Bonham let loose, Jones tiring it all together, god they’re good. 1969. San Fransisco. The Fillmore. The sound is there. The look is there. The people are there. Arguably this is where Zeppelin break. “We knew after that we were on the right track”. The critics hated it, but the people, the people loved it and who wouldn’t. Watching Page in a battered leather jacket with a bow on his scuffed guitar, ripping through ‘Dazed and Confused’ while Plant yelps. We’re lead through the evolution, through the first two records, through the recording. How each member grows. The focus though is 1969, it’s the becoming as the title states. It’s not a ground breaking doc and I’m not sure I learnt much I didn’t know, but the footage is fantastic and having it driven by the band, who really don’t usually indulge in things like this, makes it quite special. Well worth a watch whether you’re a fan or not.

6/10