Since this past weekend was the 40th anniversary of that legendary concert, I want to take the opportunity to get a fact out there that has somehow been lost in the mists of time.

Woodstock was not the first, nor the largest, event of its kind. A month before Woodstock an Atlanta, Georgia pizza parlor owner named Alex Cooley created a festival called The Atlanta International Pop Festival. It was held at a race track south of town and drew between 80,000 to 100,000 people. Performers included Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Chicago, and best of all, Led Zeppelin (great blog entry about this here). Grand Funk Railroad credited this festival with making their career. A second Atlanta Pop Festival was held in 1970 and this one introduced the Allman Brothers to a wider audience, and their set from this festival is available as a legitimate album (which I have). Alex Cooley made just one mistake with the Pop Festival: He didn't turn it into a major motion picture, and therefore the Woodstock festival gets all the credit (although Jimi Hendrix's set is availabe on DVD and on You Tube).

Two weeks after Woodstock Cooley had his second festival, the Texas International Pop Festival. Led Zeppelin's appearance at this fest has become a must-own bootleg for Led Zeppelin fans (and yes, I own it!).

A festival in Watkins Glenn, New York in 1973 headlined by the Allman Brothers was reputed to be the largest concert audience ever, drawing 200,000 more people than Woodstock, until the 1983 US Festival produced by Apple Computers. For a list of big concerts that you weren't at, go here.

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Why Led Zeppelin Was Better

Speaking of Led Zeppelin, it has long fascinated me that in spite of the number of people who've bought musical instruments, taken lessons and even graduated from music schools; in spite of the number of bands who've been signed by record companies and released tons of albums; in spite of the modern ability for every man, woman and child to record a polished record on their desktop PC, no one has made music that rang my bell like Led Zeppelin.

What explains this? Is it just because I heard Led Zeppelin's music at an age (17) when I was particularly impressionable? Is it the way the riffs stimulate my testosterone-releasing glands? Is it just because it's so damn GOOD? Recently I found at least a partial answer.

I went to a friend's house and played Guitar Hero and Rock Band for an hour or two, then he put on Led Zeppelin's 1976 concert film, The Song Remains the Same (in Blu-Ray!). After listening to songs by modern artists like Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance on the Rock Band and Guitar Hero discs and then listening to Led Zeppelin, the answer to my decades-long query was answered somewhere in the middle of "Since I've Been Loving You."

Modern rock almost always moves at a very quick, clipped 4/4 or 2/4 tempo. The bass player usually picks in straight eighth notes and the rhythm guitar strums along in the same way. The drums stay pretty straight. No one would probably notice if the whole band except the singer were replaced by MIDI.

None of this can be said of Led Zeppelin, and "Since I've Been Loving You" from Song is a great example of that. The pace and intensity varies spontaneously and the band moves as one: If Jimmy Page gets busy on his guitar, John Bonham fills in in kind with the toms. If Robert Plant emphasizes the end of a phrase, the bass drum, cymbal and guitar get hit harder, too. As they play this particular song, it's like time has stood still. The band seems oblivious that there's 15,000 people there to be entertained. No one self-consciously rushes up the tempo because someone in the fifth row appears to be drifting. There's spaces where people play, spaces where they don't, and the music breathes. They say Jack Benny was fearless in pausing as long as it took for an audience to get a joke. Led Zeppelin was fearless in letting a song take as long as it took in front of Madison Square Garden. Green Day, Blink 182, Fallout Boy, though, can't go quick enough, they're so afraid you might look away for a second.

Another thing I was struck by was the image in "No Quarter" of John Paul Jones sitting at a massive Gothic pipe organ, even though I've seen it a thousand times before. Can you think of a band before Zeppelin where a shot like that was so fitting? Would Canned Heat do a video for "Going Up the Country" with a giant pipe organ? How about the part in "The Song Remains the Same" with Robert Plant engaging in a medieval sword fight? Could you see Marty Balin from Jefferson Airplane sword fighting to "Go Ask Alice?" Don't think so. Epic, awesome, inspiring visuals were fitting for Led Zeppelin's music much more so than any other band then or now.

On that same note, Led Zeppelin were also the first band of the `60's to remember what `50's rock stars knew all along: it's not enough to rock, you have to look cool while doing it. Every member of Led Zeppelin had a cool look, a posture that said "confidence." Take a look at the Woodstock movie and you'll see most of the bands looked like a bunch of dorks in walrus mustaches and bad sideburns. Zep conquered others bands just by showing up.

So that's why Led Zeppelin's music endures and almost no one else's does. Other than the fact that Zep was awesome and everybody else sucks.