A mobster (Peter Grant) rounds up a few of his associates at his estate, with their machine guns, and heads through the countryside to a different country house where a rival gang are playing an elaborate boardgame. Bursting in, the mobsters proceed to empty their guns into the assembled company as one turns round to reveal he has no face and another transforms into a werewolf. Then there's the gangster who has his head shot off and coloured liquid squirts out of his exposed neck. Soon the mobster is sending out letters to the members of Led Zeppelin: their next concert is... tomorrow!
Well, you didn't get all that with The Last Waltz, did you? This is the way in which the cult concert movie begins, and to some extent the way in which it continues, as if they didn't have enough faith in presenting the band as they were onstage in front of adoring throngs. But on the other hand, it gives the film just the right angle of pretension, almost prog rock album cover in its approach, to make it seem more of an event than it might not have been if it were a simple run through of a typical Led Zeppelin concert, in this case one that was filmed over three 1973 nights at Madison Square Garden.
The reason it was released in 1976 was that singer Robert Plant had been in a road accident leaving the band unable to tour until he recovered, so The Song Remains the Same was hurriedly completed and released where it made the required millions for the band. It began with one director, Joe Massot, but he was fired and Peter Clifton was hired to finish it off. And then be fired too. But that's all behind the scenes, as from the film itself you would never know any of the turmoil going on to get it made.
However, the performances have been criticised for merely showing the band going through the motions, shooting them too late in their tour for the truly inspired moments to come through, which is a fair point, but certain shots were recreated in the studio and seamlessly integrated as well. The solos are there, including John Bonham's Moby Dick, basically five minutes of him mercilessly beating his equipment, but this was accompanied by the film's unique selling point: each of the band members got to create their own short films to make the visuals that bit more engaging. In Bonham's case, this was to show him enjoying driving vehicles, drinking a pint and pushing a bull which might have seemed absurdly mundane at the time, but now is more poignant than anything else.
The reason Bonham's section stands out is because the others exhibit laughable airs and pomposity. Bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones' bit is more like a family album with him as a masked nobleman riding home to his actual wife and kids, guitarist Jimmy Page goes one better and has himself finding spiritual enlightenment by climbing rocks up to a druid who grows younger before our eyes and reveals himself to be Page, and in the longest segment knight Plant arrives on the bow of a ship, has a swordfight and rescues a damsel in distress. But as silly as all this is, it's also quite fun: worse is the self-indulgence shown by manager Grant who insisted on including footage of himself turning the air blue at an unfortunate employee who failed to stop unofficial merchandise being sold at the concert venue. You will undoubtedly get more out of this film if you're a fan as it's not a place to start for the uninitiated, but it's still worthwhile in a historical sense. And they play Stairway, rest assured.
