Led Zep finally makes it to Woodstock

Violinist Michael Greilsammer will give the legendary rock band’s music a twist at Jerusalem’s annual revival.

By BARRY DAVIS
Yael Deckelbaum (photo credit: Courtesy)
Yael Deckelbaum
(photo credit: Courtesy)
More than 40 years after it happened, and with its place in the Western cultural mind-set firmly established, it is difficult to grasp that the Woodstock pop festival was originally meant to be a relatively intimate affair. While 20,000 may sound like a lot of guests to expect, around half a million people eventually made the arduous trek to Max Yasgur’s 600-acre farm in the town of Bethel, New York, in August 1969.
Over 30 acts were lined up for the three-day peace and pop bash, including quite a few who were then still largely unknown, but who quickly became household names in the aftermath of the festival.
But there is also a long list of top acts, which, for one reason or another, opted to give Woodstock a miss. One of those is Led Zeppelin – considered by many to be the best rock band the world has ever seen – which released its debut album in January 1969 and had already achieved something of a public profile after several well-attended gigs in the UK and the US. Instead of rocking the enormous audience on Yasgur’s farm – the band’s manager, Peter Grant, didn’t want the quartet to be “just another band” on the festival program – Led Zep performed at the Asbury Park Convention Hall in New Jersey.
Violinist Michael Greilsammer will do his best to redress the Led Zep-Woodstock imbalance when he and his combo perform a set of the British band’s material at this year’s Woodstock Revival event, at Kraft Stadium in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Greilsammer initially appears to be a surprising lead instrumental choice, considering the fact that none of the Led Zep members played violin. The nearest they got was when Jimmy Page used a bow on his double-neck guitar, most famously at the Madison Square Garden 1976 shows, which were subsequently captured on the band’s The Song Remains the Same live double album, but the 30-year-old Jerusalemite says he has no problems with transposing the scores to his own stringed instrument.
“The violin is my electric guitar, although I use the sound of the violin,” he notes, adding that his admiration for the British rockers knows no bounds. “They were incredible – all of them.
They came from the blues and they changed everything in the world of rock. It is an honor to play a tribute to what they did.”
Greilsammer started out on his musical path in a very different area of artistic intent. He began studying classical violin at the age of five, but says he always had at least one ear cocked in the direction of higher energy and more contemporary vibes.
“I was interested in rock music from the age of six,” he recalls.
“For me Led Zeppelin was always outside the mainstream, they always did things differently, but they still managed to be the most important rock group ever.”
Over the last decade or so Greilsammer has performed a wide variety of material, taking in pop, reggae and French music en route, but even when he was doing his utmost to get to grips with works by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, his young ears – and heart – were lured by the sounds and spirit of that historic gathering in New York State.
“As a kid, I always wanted to know what Woodstock was all about. People talked about the music and the drugs and the mud. I didn’t come from an Anglo-Saxon background,” says the violinist, whose parents are French. “I grew up more with an awareness of women burning bras in Paris in 1969.”
Led Zep wasn’t the first band to appeal to Greilsammer’s tender, classically trained musical sensibilities, but it was to have an enduring impact on his development, both as a musician and as a person.
“I wanted to understand how they managed to arrive at that incredible sound and how they did the arrangements to their songs.
I kept on going back to their music time after time. They always came up with something new, some new sound – not like the bands in Israel, and in the world, which stuck to the same sound.
“I heard that [Led Zeppelin vocalist] Robert Plant had a range of almost four octaves. That’s crazy. That means he could sing almost anything. There were all sorts of other bands in the ’70s that you instantly recognized because they had a uniform sound – bands like [Woodstock act] Crosby, Stills & Nash, which were wonderful, but after a while you want to listen to something else.
But with Led Zeppelin you’ll hear five different things on the same album, and then you’ll want to discover how the hell they managed to get that. I certainly wanted to know that.”
Greilsammer says he and his band are rehearsing hard for the Woodstock Revival show. but he is keeping his playlist close to his chest.
“I am trying to convince the guys to do [anthemic Led Zep number] ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ but we’re going to do stuff from all different Led Zep records. There is so much great stuff to choose from.”
More than just trying to do the legendary British foursome justice, Greilsammer says he wants to conjure up a bit of the magic from 1969.
“The documentary on Woodstock had a great impact on me when I was in my teens,” he states. “I have always wanted to get that energy.”
He will have an opportunity to capture some of those halcyon vibes at Kraft Stadium this Thursday.
Elsewhere on the August 2 roster there are tributes to Neil Young – who joined Crosby, Stills & Nash on the Woodstock stage – by Geva Alon; a Pink Floyd set by Ummagumma; a wild and woolly outing of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin numbers by veteran rock queen Libi and The Flashback band with a guest spot by Yael Deckelbaum; The Elevators’ Grateful Dead program; Crystal Ship’s tribute to The Doors; and a folk spot with veteran guitarist-harmonica player-vocalist Shai Tochner and young singer Maya Johanna Menachem spinning out songs by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
There will also be a bunch of non-musical activities to get into, including face painting, juggling and a best-dressed hippy costume competition, and there will probably be a few original Woodstock attendees – as well as a cousin of Farmer Yasgur – in the crowd too. • For tickets: 623-6443/7000 or www.misterticket.co.il