Led Zeppelin’s story like you’ve never seen it and it's coming to Netflix soon

It’s not that long ago that I was pointing out the lack of great musical content on Netflix. I still reckon they could attract a big audience for more live music events.

On the other hand, the new documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, coming soon to Netflix, might test the water again for a slightly different approach to music stories. 

This newly released documentary, directed by Bernard MacMahon, well known for his music films including the excellent American Epic series from 2017,  has been in the making for some time now. MacMahon spent over five years sifting through old footage and collating material.

It’s all about the story of becoming Led Zeppelin

An early and unfinished excerpt from it was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 and went down a storm there. The final version made it to cinemas earlier this year and was well-received by fans. It’s now ready to reach an even wider audience as it launches on Netflix on June 7.

Becoming Led Zeppelin documents the very early days of the four band members growing up. We get to see and hear how Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones came together to form Led Zeppelin.

As a word of warning, the period covers only up to 1970 and the release of their second album, Led Zeppelin II. It is, as the title explains, about them becoming Led Zeppelin. But by that time, they had become huge and were already lauded as the world's best rock and roll band. 

There is already plenty of material out there about the band, as you'd expect. Becoming Led Zeppelin takes a different approach with MacMahon bringing together the four individual narratives, combining to tell the band’s story of those early days.  We see more about their childhood and upbringing, their early musical careers, and later glimpses of their own families, too. 

The music isn’t overlooked at all. The soundtrack is phenomenal, though, of course, focused on their early work. That's before “Stairway To Heaven” was written, in case anyone wonders why it’s not there. There are, of course, plenty of great songs to feast on from those first two albums.

In the film, we get to see the band in action live on stage and with clips from several shows across iconic venues like Fillmore West, the Royal Albert Hall, London, and at the Newport Bay Jazz Festival.

But the story is about the four merging together, so we get to hear from each of them in some rare archive interviews. It’s a real insight to hear from Bonham in a previously unseen segment, but also from Page, Plant, and Jones in new and much more recent discussions.

Combine that story and the insights with the music, and seeing them in action at an early peak, and it's a superb blast of life mixed with rock and roll. Definitely one for your watch lists from June 7.

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