What is wrong with Jimmy Pages guitar tone?

monquixote

p90fool said:

Led Zep were probably too wasted or pissed to lock together like that most of the time.

Even a pissed Bonzo was ten times the drummer Keith Moon was. 

Most overrated drummer ever and probably not even the best drummer in The Who.

usedtobe

randomhandclaps;217581" said:

usedtobe said:

My expectations were pretty low from the day the gig was announced, tbh..

I just think it was great that lot's of genuine lifetime Led Zep fans got to see them!  It would have been horrid had this turned into some industry love it full of posers and fashionistas.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5clr2NWuk1rwcc6bo1_500.gif

 

Indeed.

p90fool

monquixote said:

Even a pissed Bonzo was ten times the drummer Keith Moon was. 

Most overrated drummer ever and probably not even the best drummer in The Who.

Possibly, but he did pave the way for a rock (rather than pop) style very early on, and was a great showman.
No arguments about John Bonham, I bought the Led Zep DVD box set purely for the drumming

viz

When I sat next to him on the Gatwick Express to Victoria a few years ago, ( ) we chatted about his tone on Outrider - he seemed genuinely pleased when I said how much I loved that album, especially his sound on it. He implied he was delighted with that sound - I guess it was the sound he was going for for all those years previously.

Evilmags

Was at the gig and had a great night. The atmosphere was unreal and everyone there had a great time. I´ve seen the DVD and when you are sober and not hyped up on adrenaline, then you clearly see the faults, the main one being that Jimmy Page has forgotten how to play guitar. It´s not as bad as Knebworth 79 (Get the bootleg, some real shockers on that) but he clearly stopped practising in about 1977 and has not really played properly since. Zep live from 69-75 were generally very good. Loads of bootlegs about to prove that and How The West was Won is an excellent album. Better to remember them for that. JPJ is really the only one of them left who could still pull off a Zep show. Page was a brilliant and innovative guitarist in his day, but he is not even a shadow of that now.

richardhomer

The O2 dates were postponed due to Page having a 'hand injury'. I have it on very good authority that his chops were nowhere near up to scratch and were unlikely to be so for the intended dates, so they were put back to allow him more time to get match-fit.

Bucket

I understand the huge impact Led Zeppelin had, and therefore the impact that Jimmy Page's playing had - and I can't deny he is responsible for some cracking songs and guitar parts, mainly amazing riffs but some great solos too. Whole Lotta Love is hands-down my favourite solo of his, but Black Dog and Stairway are great as well.

However, beyond that I fail to see how he is so revered as a player. His soloing is often unimaginative or downright tuneless, very sloppy, frequently out of time or off-key, and usually with a really horrible tone. And obviously I'll be flamed to hell and back for saying this, because any form of criticism of Jimmy Page, however fair (and I believe I am being fair) is considered sacrilege. Why is he off-limits? 

DrBob

Bucket said:

I understand the huge impact Led Zeppelin had, and therefore the impact that Jimmy Page's playing had - and I can't deny he is responsible for some cracking songs and guitar parts, mainly amazing riffs but some great solos too. Whole Lotta Love is hands-down my favourite solo of his, but Black Dog and Stairway are great as well.

However, beyond that I fail to see how he is so revered as a player. His soloing is often unimaginative or downright tuneless, very sloppy, frequently out of time or off-key, and usually with a really horrible tone. And obviously I'll be flamed to hell and back for saying this, because any form of criticism of Jimmy Page, however fair (and I believe I am being fair) is considered sacrilege. Why is he off-limits? 

No, I'm totally with you, the amount of stick I've got over the years for saying that I've always preferred Lizzy to Zeppelin... That said, Black Dog is ohssum

Danny1969

I never liked Page much as a guitarist in technical terms but the songs were great in energy and excitement and the production for it's time was good. Best moments for me in Zepplin come from the drums .... that classic huge drum sound in when the Levee breaks, the great drum riff in Fool in the rain, the intro to R&R etc. Page was good at layering parts in the studio and was a good producer in terms of arrangement.  Live though he's so sloppy it's ridiculous 

Having said all that the truly great guitarist are the ones who come up with the riffs and songs we are all playing and talking about 40 years later ....  so he's definitely a truly great guitarist  

ICBM

There are also other guitarists who are generally thought of as great players with poor tone... I think we had a thread about it a while back.

It's not always just a 'bad tone in isolation but which fits the music in context' either - sometimes it's just unnecessarily poor... ie it could be a lot better but still fit the music as well. I think quite a bit of Page's playing falls into that area - I don't think he should be above criticism either, even if it's the music which wins in the end.

UnclePsychosis

Bucket;217919" said:

I understand the huge impact Led Zeppelin had, and therefore the impact that Jimmy Page's playing had - and I can't deny he is responsible for some cracking songs and guitar parts, mainly amazing riffs but some great solos too. Whole Lotta Love is hands-down my favourite solo of his, but Black Dog and Stairway are great as well.

However, beyond that I fail to see how he is so revered as a player. His soloing is often unimaginative or downright tuneless, very sloppy, frequently out of time or off-key, and usually with a really horrible tone. And obviously I'll be flamed to hell and back for saying this, because any form of criticism of Jimmy Page, however fair (and I believe I am being fair) is considered sacrilege. Why is he off-limits? 

I'd agree with that. I've long thought LZ and Page were massively overrated.

Evilmags

When Page made his name in the late 60s and early 70s he was one of the best players in London, and had loads of sessions behind him. On the studio albums the tone fits the music and on live bootlegs his soloing is also excellent. Once he got a smack habit he seemed to stop practising and his playing deteriorated massively and noticeably. 77 and 79 bootlegs are generally awful. He was the creative force behind the most important rock band of the 70s. He was also the producer of all of those albums. In 1973 there were not many Rock players on his level.

It is frankly ridiculous trying to compare a player who appears to have given up on practise in 1975 and who spent the ten years after that shooting smack and coke cocktails into his veins. The Firm were terrible, outrier is terrible and Page and Plant is terrible when compared to early and mid era Led Zeppelin.

The reason Clapton and Beck are still watchable is that they both play regularly and never went for very long without projects and gigs. Page has basically done SFA since Zeppelin split and expecting him to be able to just turn it on after the best part of 30 years out of action is a step too far.

richardhomer

Evilmags;217988" said:

Page has basically done SFA since Zeppelin split and expecting him to be able to just turn it on after the best part of 30 years out of action is a step too far.

I think this is spot on. Clapton became a singer/song writer who played guitar after Cream, while Beck continued to push the boundaries of what the guitar could do, right to the present. In other words, they both reinvented themselves in a way that allowed their careers to continue. Yet Page never seemed to find any creative outlet after Zep.

Headphones

Never really got the "Zep as deity" bit myself.

They were clearly the peak of the heavy blues genre, and influenced other bands and music, but the other immense rock bands of the day had much greater and longer lasting influence; Sabbath and Purple (maybe Abba too) gave rise to far more depth, creativity and downright musicianship than Zep did.

While I love I, II and IV, there's only a little credible material outside of these albums, a legacy which bares no comparison of the Deep Black's endowment upon modern music.

supes

Evilmags;217988" said:

Page has basically done SFA since Zeppelin split and expecting him to be able to just turn it on after the best part of 30 years out of action is a step too far.

He's a great player, written some incredible riffs, a true guitar legend.
However, If he puts himself on stage then I buy his CD/DVD of the show, then no, to comment on his dreadful fizzy guitar tone isn't a step too far.
.

matt1973

I would firstly state that I LOVE Zeppelin and Page should be regarded as by far the most visionary musicians from the Brit guitarists of the 60s with a style many a 70s teen would found both enchanting and iconic. However he was, to his detriment, a very complacent & lazy fecker from Presence onward. 

 Fast forward thirty years.... And no change. I could only take 5 mins of that blasted O2 gig before I had to switch it off. In stark contrast to the rave reviews I was hearing about this, it seemed to me like another Live Aid was in the offing.

By further contrast, at a pretty similar time, Jeff Beck produced a seminal performance at Ronnie Scott's which seems to get practically zero recognition.

I guess the lesson here is, whether it's your own or anyone else's, don't believe the hype.

chrisj1602

Page was amazing, inspired thousands, probably millions. Everyone has their ups and downs, and Page certainly did get worse for various reasons, but overall, he is a great and will be remembered as one.

Jalapeno

Plant on the other hand has continued working ever since LZ split, and IMHO is always interesting.

And to counter the Page is past-it brigade, watch the Unledded DVD - Page was on fire playing in that. I think if he's match fit he's excellent.

ESchap

 

I was at Knebworth in 1979.  I was a huge Zeppelin and Page fan at the time and ecstatic I was going to see them live.  OK they hadn't played together live since 1977, but they were shockingly bad, particular Page  ....what's the line ... "when the band you're in starts playing a different tune" ....  it would have been funny if I hadn't spent a significant proportion of my summer job earnings getting there!  Even Todd Rundgren wiped the floor with them, at least his band were in tune and kept time with each other!

xSkarloey

Jalapeno said:

Plant on the other hand has continued working ever since LZ split, and IMHO is always interesting.

And to counter the Page is past-it brigade, watch the Unledded DVD - Page was on fire playing in that. I think if he's match fit he's excellent.

Agree 100% about Unledded. That also showed another skill he has which is to sit back where needs be in order to let others take centre stage if the arrangement demands it. Kashmir in all its forms is an example of that. 

'Match fit' is the operative term for me here. If you see the O2 as the rock equivalent of a testimonial match, where a lot of the old players come out and give a flavour of what they used to do week in week out, then I thought he did okay in the main. I'd fear for his fitness over the course of a whole 'season' (i.e. tour) though. That said, of course people who paid to se the gig and who bought the CD/DVD have the right to pass comment on the standard of his playing.