Led Zeppelin – The Fantastic Return!

NEW UPDATE! 15th Dec.

The Led Zeppelin return, last Monday, was possibly the most fantastic comeback ever – fans were in rapture and the consensus seemed to be that Led Zeppelin were as good as expected -as good as they were in the 70s, even. Footage on BBC proved as much – you didn’t see old rock dinossaurs past it, they really seemed vital, they were giving it their best.

It comes as no surprise then, that Jimmy Page in particular. was on top form (despite his glowing white hair!) and played some of the same gear he used in the Led Zep heydays, including his 1958 Gibson Les Paul, number two, the one a that inspired the Gibson Jimmy Page Signature model, with an open bridge humbucker and a covered one neck one. Unfortunately this guitar has been discontinued, though Gibson continues to make faithful reproductions of the ’58 Les Paul Standard.

His amp  setup consisted of no less than 4 stacks, each comprising two heads on top of each other and of 4×12 speakers.

Jimmy Page used some classic amps such as Marshall and Orange heads, though unfortunately it’s quite hard to identify which from the pictures. The Marshall heads look a bit like the SLP-1959 Amps he used and were modded from 100-watt to 180-watt in 1985. The Orange are quite possibly the custom built Orange Matamp heads he used on-stage from Aug. 7, 1971 through the 1973 US Tour. They were 200w heads used with the theremin.

Page fans might be interested in the Matamp MiniMat, a pretty cool choice for Led Zep fans who wanna use a similar head amp in venues considerably smaller than the O2 Arena. Quite affordable, too.

The last pair of Head amps look like the Petersbourg heads he used at  the time of the Page/Plant reunion in the 90s. Though, overall, it seems that Page definitely went for the classic, 70s Led Zeppelin tones.

Another piece of gear from his 1980’s days was a vintage, rare Gibson ES5 (picture below) but we’ve only seen this photograph here, so I can’t say in which song it was used for.

So, that was Led Zeppelin 21st century – no Phil Collins on drums, no Strats, and the old, classic sound. With a Rolling Stones cover story already, the rumours of a proper reunion and world tour seem stronger than ever now… we’ll see!

PLEASE NOTE: this page will be updated as we get more info of what gear Jimmy Page used…

In case you missed it first time round, here’s a link to our Jimmy Page Gear Guide, which has also been updated today (15 dec) to be utterly complete!!!

For more photos and review, go to the NME website.

O2 Arena Setlist:

‘Good Times Bad Times’
‘Ramble On’
‘Black Dog’
‘In My Time Of Dying’
‘For Your Life’
‘Trampled Under Foot’
‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’
‘No Quarter’
‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’
‘Dazed And Confused’
‘Stairway To Heaven’
‘The Song Remains The Same’
‘Misty Mountain Hop’
‘Kashmir’
‘Whole Lotta Love’
‘Rock And Roll’

~ by dolphinblog on December 11, 2007.