Live 8 Tracks: Number 4

Live 8 is only 3 days away. Buy your beer now.

#4: "Whole Lotta Love"
-Led Zeppelin, How the West Was Won (Atlantic)

Medleys are usually concert cop-outs. A band at the peak of their popularity will string together some of their early material in a feeble attempt to appease older fans. It sucks. "Whole Lotta Love" from HWWW is a rare exception. Instead of cramming their own songs into the medley, Zeppelin dabbled in covers that revealed their influences (most notably John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun"). The inclusion of the four songs in the middle of "Whole Lotta Love" stretches the original song to 23 minutes. Only "Poop Ship Destroyer" from Ween's Paintin' the Town Brown LP boasts greater expansive powers: turning a 2-minute ditty into a 26-minute cruise on the chocolate stew.

Normally I prefer single-date concert discs to the hodge-podge live album culled from numerous shows, but HWWW (recorded over 2 dates in August 1972) has been masterfully mixed to resemble a single performance (except that the 3 discs would be a marathon concert).

After drummer John Bonham's death in 1980, Led Zeppelin broke up...and then reformed for Live Aid in 1985. The results were so disasterous (Phil Collins played the skins) that their performance was excised from the Live Aid DVD/CD.

Pink Floyd is reuniting in London for Live 8. Let's hope they fare better.