I was like someone who enjoyed the Star Wars Holiday Special and then found out there were some related movies I should probably check out. By comparison, the album tracks seemed like experiencing the band for a few minutes by looking through a keyhole in the back of a concert while wearing earmuffs. Their equipment failed them sometimes, and they’re humans, so mistakes were made onstage (and off)–but when it all clicked, it was absolutely stunning.Īs legendary as the band had seemed when I was a kid, I hadn’t imagined a fraction of the musical reality these flawed old recordings revealed. Even the band members themselves didn’t seem to really know what might happen before they finished playing a song. I started responding to ads in the back of record collector magazines and haunting record shows collecting these live recordings.Īs later live album releases have demonstrated since the days when the Song Remains the Same film soundtrack was the only available live Led Zeppelin recording, the songs were familiar but were improvised into different 5-dimensional pretzels with each performance, particularly earlier in their career.
I couldn’t see the lasers or gizmos, but the music I could hear, mostly recorded by amateurs in the audience on primitive portable recording gear, was very different than what I expected. I’d concluded those old concert tales of awe had mostly been just a bunch of kids talking and exaggerating, but in fact they had understated what my ears were telling me had really happened on stage. Around the same time, I discovered that many recordings of Led Zeppelin concerts and studio outtakes exist, and they’re packed with moments as electrifying and more so as those in the album tracks we’ve heard countless times on the radio, at sporting events, etc. I wrote about Led Zep in my high school newspaper and played their songs on my university radio station.ĭuring a university break in a “hey, why not?” moment I answered a want ad on a music store bulletin board for a singer and joined a band that played a lot of Led Zeppelin songs. Soon I was playing my brothers’ LPs more often and became a bigger fan as I got older. I had been too young to attend these concerts myself and wondered about what must have really happened to inspire all these third-hand tales of magic and astonishment. I began to hear cryptic stories handed down from older kids about incredible Led Zeppelin concerts involving stuff like weird noise-making gizmos and laser beams. This all seemed like very important stuff! One year a graduating high school student drew the image from the inside of the fourth Led Zeppelin album and they printed it in the school yearbook.
I noticed that some of the older kids I looked up to seemed to be fans, wearing Led Zeppelin shirts and doodling the band’s logo all over their notebooks and whatnot.
Later, Led Zep’s music stood out to me among the standard FM radio tunes the driver played on the school bus, and I made the happy connection between the songs I was liking and those mysteriously alluring album covers. The cover images and cutouts stood out to me as exceptionally artful, intricate, and mysterious compared to most of the other LP sleeves my brothers had laying around, and that really grabbed my little-kid curiosity before I ever understood I was listening to their music. I discovered the band at a very early age by noticing the artwork on their album covers, beginning with the third album. We sat down virtually with Dan and asked him about his love for Led Zeppelin, his love of pinball, what it means to finally have a Led Zeppelin pinball machine, and of course, to tell us all about every little detail of his gorgeous LZ LE pinball machine.ĪUSRETROGAMER: Hey Dan, thank you for joining us! Let’s dive straight into it – when and how did you get into Led Zeppelin?ĭan O’Connor :It’s a great pleasure, Alex, thanks for the opportunity! My older brothers were the first Led Zeppelin fans I knew. To show his love of the band (and pinball), Dan has meticulously tricked out his machine, which truly makes it unique and a great tribute for his love of both, music and the silverball game. But the exclusiveness of having one of 500 machines wasn’t enough for Dan. With only 500 of these LE machines worldwide, it’s safe to say that he is in an exclusive club.
Each young generation has their one band while growing up that then transcends time and the love of their music.įor audiophile and pinball collector, Dan O’Connor, he has finally been able to fuse his love of the iconic hard rock band with his love of pinball with Stern’s new Led Zeppelin (LZ) pinball machine. Being a huge fan, there was only ever one choice of which model to procure, so Dan hunted down and bought himself the top of the range Led Zeppelin Limited Edition (LE) pinball machine for his fix. There are fans, and then there are mega fans.