Zep's inconsistency comes after 1973, not 1970. 80% of the live shows Zeppelin played were in 68-73. So let's not overdo this Zeppelin were consistent argument.

Zeppelin actually influenced the Stones in the live setting - I believe Seledia has the link somewhere (I can try and find it if not) but Charlie Watts refers to one of the Stones' tours as the "Zeppelin" tour due to the fact they had to lengthen out their shows.

perhaps it wasn't that clear but, I was also agreeing.

In no way should Led Zeppelin be that far ahead of Deep Purple.

Not that I know how the artists have been evaluated, but maybe Zep and Purple are fairly closely matched, and it just so happens that 55 artists are ranked inbetween them? We shouldn't assume artists should be a certain position apart.

I was overstating my case, and i have no where near the depth of specific zep knowledge that you have Gerogi. Do you have a link supporting the 80% fact? That was a statistic i was unaware up. However, I think my main point remains, if consistency is a main criteria for this list, Zeppelin's place within the top 15 is not substantiated.

I would deny that Zep had in no influenced the stones live, influence is clearly a two way street. Though the Watts quote does smack of "after this, therefore because of this" logic at leadt as it pertains to Zep's influence on the stones specifically.

Just because they called their longer tour the "Zeppelin tour" does not, cause in fact, mean that they lengthened their set list because of zeppelin. I think that quote speaks more of Zep's "impact" on live performance across the rock world, in that they became closely associated with longer set-lists, and longer concerts in general.

I guess im just unpersuaded that Zep has massive enough influence, in the live setting, to warrant a top 15-20 placement. Their relative weakness in the consistency category also dampens their prospects. Consistence and influence are 50% of the criteria. I believe that they score significantly higher in the other two criteria, but not enough to pull up the deficit in the others.

I know you were, i was just adding my "two cents" to the discussion. Not that i needed to, of course.

http://www.royal-orleans.com/phpBB/view ... =11&t=6084

Third post here, Blender, although that post is from 05, so it's not strictly up to date.

I don't feel comfortable giving a breakdown criteria wise, since I really can't comment on the other artists on the list. I'll leave that to Sampson I just wanted to make sure things didn't get bogged down in the usual misconeptions of live Led Zeppelin.

The 80% stat is stone cold fact and has been backed up on this site many times.

As for the claims of inconsistency, I think they are way overblown. From 1969 to 1972 (and a large portion of 1973), Zep played almost 400 shows and blew the roof off for nearly every one. It was only after Zep hired a PR agent for the 73 US tour, Rolling Stone hopped onto the Zeppelin express in 1975 and The Song Remains the Same was released in 1976 that people began labeling them as inconsistent. By then, excess and drugs had taken over the Zep camp, resulting in very uneven performances in the latter half of 1973 and beyond. The general public remained largely igorant of the incredibly strong and very consistent performances prior to the PR explosion.

I really would not include any of 73 in the inconsistent category - sure TSRTS isn't the best representation of Zep - and that US tour isn't my favourite, but they were not turning out bad performances by any means - that didn't start until 75 for me, and was only really a big issue in 77-80.

I would tend to agree, but shades of it definitely started to show up in the 73 US tour. Sure, there are several great performances (Seattle, Providence, Fort Worth, Kezar, and Inglewood come readily to mind), but it is noticeably less consistant than say, US 72, Japan 71, etc.

On the other hand, Europe '73 is an all-time great. Monster performances night after night.

This inconsistency thing is almost all revisionist history. Very powerful too. I've read reviews of shows performed in Zep's heyday and the reviews just do not match-up with the bootlegs that I have. People's actual memory of the show that they probably had the time of their life at up to that point has faded in the last few decades and been largely replaced by the nonsense people are being fed today.

Someone will review a show from 1970, for example, and throw out claims like Page was strung out, no encore, rude band members, limp crowd, etc, and then I'll listen to the bootleg and it will be almost the exact opposite. It doesn't help that Zep were very rude to the music press (and often times for good reason) often resulting in bad reviews of otherwise great shows. These reviews, combined with other factors as attendees aged, eventually became people's actual memories.

Yeah, I agree there's less spontaneity and top tier brilliance in that tour. But the bottom level was still pretty decent. And good point on the reviews too.

I love me some PFunk (easily one of my favorite musical groups), but what merits them being at #10?

I don't agree with that at all. I don't think influence works that way.

No one does anything entirely new. Every artist has their influences. So of course the Dead didn't invent the jam band thing out of whole cloth. But the fact is that they perfected it and most importantly they inspired the entire scene. Phish didn't form because of Quicksilver Messenger Service; they formed out of a scene where the Dead was the be-all and end-all. (I know--I went to high school with the keyboard player.) And that's probably true of just about every band on the scene. The nature of the shows, the way the sets are put together, the way the fans behave, are all directly inspired by the Dead. So I think they absolutely should get credit for that, even if everything the Dead did was directly inspired by QMS (which of course would be an exaggeration anyway).

I'm certainly not saying to put them above, say, Springsteen, but when I compare them to, say, Michael Jackson, I think they come out much higher on the criteria. (And I'm a MUCH, MUCH bigger fan of Jackson.) As I said, the lower part of the top ten sounds about right for them.

I'm curious about that, too. The Grateful Dead even pioneered advancements in amplification for large concert events, along with Pink Floyd and The Who. Also, the live concert experience is so central to their considerable appeal that they have become almost synonymous with the concept of the "event" live artist. I would not consider them to be out of place in the top ten. But there's about twenty-five artists that I wouldn't consider out of place in the top ten, so...

Still, Led Zeppelin does look a bit too high to me, considering several of the names right below them, and I remember thinking that Sampson's reasons for Led Zeppelin's lofty ranking on the previous iteration of the list were faulty. If I recall correctly, it was largely based on the idea that Led Zeppelin didn't rely on hit singles to build a large concert following. I have two problems with that. First, they did have significant hit single success at the dawn of their career in the USA, with "Whole Lotta Love" hitting #4. Second, Jimi Hendrix predates them and actually did build a large concert following without significant hit single success in the USA. He had nothing in the Top Forty in the USA until "All Along the Watchtower" hit #20. If we were talking the UK, it would be a different story, of course. Jimi had several hit singles there to jumpstart his career, while Led Zeppelin released none. But in terms of the USA, I think the Jimi Hendrix Experience ought to benefit from that argument much more than Led Zeppelin should.

Also, I'm not sure if this directly applies to the criteria, but Jimi Hendrix has at least two truly iconic live rock 'n' roll moments: Burning his guitar at Monterey, and playing "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. Led Zeppelin has none, unless you think Jimmy Page's guitar and bow sequence from The Song Remains the Same qualifies. And, if it does, it's still a few rungs down the ladder from Jimi's best moments. Maybe this is because Led Zeppelin did not participate in any major rock festivals, but, even when they did, at Live Aid in 1985, they failed to impress. You can say that they were well past their prime by that point, but, c'mon, it was 1985. The Who blew everyone off the stage at the Concert For New York City in 2001, the Isle of Wight Festival in 2004 and Glastonbury in 2007. And they're even older than Led Zeppelin. You can say, "Yeah, but The Who are #4 and Led Zeppelin are #14." But Sampson will tell you that out of all the rock artists in all of rock history, that really ain't much.

No, I think Zep more than deserves a top 10-20 placement, I was only agreeing on having Grateful Dead above them as a live act. Zeppelin has more than enough credentials to warrant a high spot on the list.