Posted on 12/11/2007 2:55:21 PM PST by blam
Led Zeppelin sales soar after concert success
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 11/12/2007
Sales of Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue soared today after the spectacular success of their one-off reunion concert.
The group’s best-of album, Mothership, have already gone Platinum, meaning it has sold more than 300,000 copies, but Gennaro Castaldo, a spokesman for HMV, said it was on track to become one of the biggest best-sellers.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page perform in Istanbul in March
Sales of the album at the company’s 240 stores leapfrogged those of Westlife and the Spice Girls to become the chain’s number one seller.
“Sales of their album have had a massive, massive boost by the concert,” he said.
“It was our best-selling album today, up from number eight last week. Led Zeppelin t-shirts have also been our most popular since the concert.”
Mr Castaldo said that sales of the band’s DVD, The Song Remains the Same, and its back catalogue had rocketed by 500 per cent since the concert.
The Led Zeppelin official website became the third most visited for an artist or band, beaten only by Katie Melua and Radiohead.
The web was also awash with calls from the army of followers for the British group to announce a world tour.
Jimmy Page, the guitarist, has already indicated that he would like to play more shows, but singer Robert Plant has so far appeared reluctant to commit.
“If the crowd response didn’t convince Robert then nothing will,” one fan wrote after watching the show at the O2 Centre in London.
“Led Zep owe us a tour. Robert needs to start thinking about all the fans who love them,” said another.
Another pleaded: “I hope they will. There are so many of us who missed out on tickets for a concert we’d imagined for nearly three decades.”
According to industry insiders, the band have two nights at Wembley Stadium in London on hold for next summer.
But sources close to the band said that a decision had not yet been made because “their energies were concentrated 100 per cent on last night’s gig”.
However, he added: “A tour has certainly not been ruled out and Jimmy has said it would be a shame not to do more.”
Shortly after the band’s music was available to download last month, their classic 1971 song Stairway to Heaven went straight into the Top 40.
Led Zeppelin was light years ahead of all the others. Great rock music and superb acoustic work as well.
However, for me, they are not really Led Zeppelin without John Bonham. Jason Bonham is a great drummer, but it’s not the same.
That was the original version, a better one too. The Zeps stole all kinds of riffs from Neil Sedaka, Bobby Rydell and even Jimmy Clanton!
“Green Tamborine?”
They do tell a tale, it’s just the kind of psuedo-intellectual tale that is generally a blight on rock and roll. But somehow it all works, in spite of the fact that every part of the song is somewhere between laughable and lame the song is great. Proof that the people who try to formulize creativity are wrong from the start.
Amen. I think Moon meant a lot more to "The Who" than Bonham did to LZ. Without Moon, The Who is just Pete Townshend's backing band. Moon gave The Who their personality, and he was such a kick-ass drummer, so unique, nobody could ever sound quite like he did.
I wonder if any drummer like the late Kieth Moon had or has the ability to “beat lyrics”.
Rember Frampton in concert picking and singing through the same amp?
Moon drummed to Daltry in much the same way and was,according to Townshend (still one of my guitar heroes thus proving I’m no homophobe),pretty mundane otherwise.
Only the good die young.
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