LED ZEPPELIN - ACHILLES LAST STAND

"Oh to laugh aloud, dancing high above the crowd"

Of all the 'epic thingummybobs', as Robert once wryly observed, Achilles Last Stand is perhaps the monster of all monsters. As a 15 year old already rabid Zepaholic, the first time I heard Presence stays with me to this day. This is the story of how it all came to be, how it evolved and where the band took it, and indeed where it took them.

As the summer of '75 blossomed, things were just about as good as it gets within the Zeppelin camp. A hugely successful tour, record breaking double LP on their own label, even a reappraisal from the usually cynical British press after the summer season at Earls' Court. A handful of huge US shows had been booked to crown a year that saw 'em back at the very top.

And that's when it all started to go very wrong.

Robert's car accident in Rhodes on August 4th derailed not only the immediate future but raised questions for the long term too. After initial recuperation, all the energy and positivity was now bottled up and threatening to blow, so a decision and plan of action had to be made. Jimmy was particularly keen to keep the momentum going, so with Robert now ensconced at a rented beach house in Malibu, the rest of the band flew over and rehearsals for the 7th Led Zeppelin studio LP began at SIR Studios in Hollywood.

Only a brief snippet of these rehearsals have surfaced, sadly just a limbering up exercise of a boogie with some Tea For One lyrics that morphed into Minnie The Moocher and the rhythm section auditioning the riff of Royal Orleans. 

With ideas and basic structures bludgeoned into shape, Musicland Studios in Munich was the decided destination. Run by legendary disco producer Giorgio Moroder, it was very state of the art and gave Jimmy the live sound he liked to work with. At the end of the first week of November, Led Zeppelin went back to work. And on November 12th, alongside Hots On for Nowhere and Royal Orleans, Achilles Last Stand was laid down. 

Final mixing for the LP was done on the 23rd, using the extra couple of days Jimmy had scrounged from Mick Jagger as the Stones were already booked to begin work on their Black & Blue LP.

So, where did Achilles spring from? The strident riff and relentless energy on this scale is a new original avenue for Zeppelin, the only touching point is probably Immigrant Song, but instead of a tight unison riff behind Robert's tales of gore we have a widescreen guitar army floating and punctuating the main theme while the Bonzo/Jonesy rhythm section holds everything together.

The main F# to E cadence is the one part of Achilles that can be traced back through live performances. As early as Osaka, Japan on October 4th 1972 Jimmy was expanding Dazed and Confused to include a light rolling theme as a link between the post opening verse call and response instrumental games and the violin bow sketch. Robert would soon latch on to the melody and add lyrics from (mainly) 'San Francisco'(Wear some flowers in your hair), made most famous in the Zep movie of course.

Although not exactly the same, the mood and structure was flushed out and Jimmy would overdub a myriad of guitars hauntingly echoing the theme that bookends the piece. The rest comes out of the ether. Fist pumping on the table as Charles Shaar Murray observed in his NME review at the time. 'We started screaming and never stopped' is one of Jimmy's dry observations of the time.

Incredibly focused and driven, Jimmy managed to create a boggling array of duelling guitars that not only drove the piece to another level but also complemented Robert's travelogue lyrics without swamping the live feel of the song. Some of the overdubs are what you would expect, but others came, as Robert once opined about Jimmy 'from a little south of heaven'...

Truly, it's a remarkable song. A triumph at a time of uncertainty and adversity and a positive vibe amongst a collection of more reflective and negative songs. Bonzo's insistent triplet patterns, tied in with Jonesy's 8-string Alembic stabs lay the perfect undercurrent.

If you listen to the Physical Graffiti rehearsal tapes from Headley Grange, even the sadly brief SIR sessions from October '75, you can hear the remarkable syncopation and understanding within the band. The widescreen vision Jimmy had to add overdub after overdub and create such a relentless masterpiece is mind boggling.

In interviews soon after the release Jimmy mentioned he thought Bonzo and Jonesy 'didn't really see' where Achilles was going. I don't think even Jimmy had a full idea of how it would end up!

Add to that Robert's optimistic lyrics complete with middle eastern cries and it's complete. The mighty arms of atlas indeed. And to start a crucial elpee after all the kerfuffle they'd been through with such a song is a sign of not only confidence but defiance.

Now Zep turned their attention to getting back on the road. Robert's healing process was sufficiently far along for rehearsals and for Gee to put a tour together. In late November they assembled at Ezyhire in North London. Achilles was tackled immediately - as they had always done with new 'big' numbers like Stairway and Kashmir - and successfully arranged for Jimmy to use his trusty Les Paul and in his words 'different effects', after initially thinking he'd have to use the doubleneck to replicate some of the guitar army onstage. He was sufficiently enthused by the way the first rehearsals went to proclaim 'Something epic is going to happen musically - that's the way I feel with this next tour'.

Once the rust had been removed and thumbs up were flashed all around, the tour was set up. Initially the idea was USA first, possibly South America too and then Europe including an 'extensive' UK Tour. Hmm. 1977 began with rehearsals reconvening in January at ELP's Manticore rehearsal complex in Fulham, West London.

With the tour scheduled to being in Fort Worth, Texas on February 27th, the guys went away happy. Achilles was to be the climax of Jimmy's final solo showcase of the night. The guitar synth/octivider sketch was to include an anthem or two amid the smoke and creeping lasers. Some Theremin blats and then The Bow. Over anything from 8 to 20 minutes he realised his sorcery imagery dreams and created a mind boggling array of sounds, textures and visuals. Or twatted about while some lasers flashed about and spun round....

This was placed to lead up to the set closer of Stairway and be some 2 1/2 hours or more into proceedings. After Robert ailed with throat problems, the tour finally kicked off in Dallas on April fools day. 

The 'Magick' tour saw Zep eventually play 44 shows. As a pivotal part of the set, you would expect Achilles to be played every night. Well, at every complete show it almost certainly was. Here are the stats - Audio bootlegs of the tour 37. Audio recordings of ALS 33. Add to that footage of 6 shows that included ALS. 5 lots of cine film - 2 of which have no audio bootleg - and the pro shot show from Seattle Kingdome on July 17th.

It became a stock part of the 4 1979 shows, without Jimmy's solo spot which was now a prelude to new epic 'In The Evening'. For the 'Over Europe' gigs in 1980, it appeared on 12 of the 14 nights, missing in Nuremburg on June 27th (the show being truncated due to Bonzo overdosing on potassium thanks to eating 27 bananas....) and the final Led Zeppelin show in Berlin on July 7th where it was dropped for reasons unknown.

Ironically the final performance of Achilles Last Stand was in Munich on July 5th, in the very city it was recorded. Of the 79/80 shows, both Knebworth gigs were filmed and recorded and cine film from 4 of the Over Europe gigs has been captured on cine film that includes ALS, in Cologne, Rotterdam, Zurich and Munich.

So, 51 live versions in one form or another. Add to that the 1980 rehearsal audio, attributed to both London's Victoria Apollo and Rainbow Theatre in April/May 1980. For me, the Rainbow is more likely. The official Rainbow website states Zeppelin had booked from April 22nd to May 2nd for rehearsals.

Post Zeppelin, Page & Plant had initially decided to include ALS in the 1995 US Tour setlist, and performed it on the opening night in Pensacola, Florida on February 26th and at Atlanta on the 28th. Then it was gone. Despite some great enthusiastic drum histrionics from the late Michael Lee it was then dropped, never to be played again.

As much as the studio version is a masterpiece to many, live it took on another life. Robert was enthralled and perhaps amazed by the Knebworth performance included in 'DVD', and on an 'on' night it was certainly something to behold. I remember in the summer of 1977 getting a C120 tape of 'For Badgeholders Only Part One' with the bonus of Jimmy's solo and Achilles from the first 'Destroyer' 4LP bootleg set recorded in Cleveland on April 28th. A chaotic audience recording, the result is for me simply stunning. Of all the versions I've heard and seen, this sticks with me. Maybe because it was the first. The intensity and brutal power is something else. The Hammer of the Gods indeed.