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The latter days (1976-1982)
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Led Zeppelin took a break from touring in 1976, and began filming "fantasy" segments for the concert film "The Song Remains The Same". During this break, Robert Plant and his wife were in a car crash while on holiday in Greece. Plant suffered a broken ankle; Maureen Plant was very seriously injured, and only a flight back to London and a timely blood transfusion saved her life.
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Unable to tour, the band returned to the studio and, with Plant sitting on a stool during the sessions, they recorded their seventh studio album, Presence. A highlight of the album was "Achilles Last Stand", a ten minute epic featuring a driving bass line, thundering drums, melodic guitar riffs and a guitar solo that is regarded by many as one of Page's best. However, the album marked a change in the Led Zeppelin sound, with straightforward, guitar-based jams such as "Nobody's Fault But Mine" outnumbering the intricate arrangements typical of previous albums. Presence was a platinum seller, but the album received mixed responses from critics and fans; while some appreciated the looser style, others dismissed it as sloppy, and some critics speculated that the band member's legendary excesses might have caught up with them at last.The time Presence was recorded marked the beginning of Page's injecting heroin, which may have interfered with Led Zeppelin's later live shows and studio recordings, although Page has denied this.
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October 21, 1976 finally saw the release of the concert film The Song Remains the Same, and the soundtrack album of the film. The recording had taken place during three nights of concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1973, during the Houses of the Holy tour. Due to its flawed production, The Song Remains the Same is not generally considered to be a great live album, but it would be the only official live document of the group available until the release of the BBC Sessions in 1997.
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In 1977, Led Zeppelin embarked on another massive U.S. tour, again selling out up to five nights in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Many shows from this tour were the sources of bootleg recordings prized by fans.Following a show at the "Days on the Green" festival at Oakland Coliseum in California, the news came that Robert Plant's five year old son, Karac, had died from a respiratory infection. Other problems during the tour included the arrest of several members of the band's support staff (including manager Peter Grant) after a member of promoter Bill Graham's Oakland concert staff was badly beaten during the concert. A member of the staff had allegedly slapped Peter Grant's son when he was taking down a dressing room sign. When Grant heard of this, he went into the trailer, along with some of the roadies and John Bonham, and beat the man senseless.This resulted in the rest of the tour being canceled. Malicious critics and superstitious fans imputed the bands' misfortunes to a "curse", said to be related to Page's supposed interest in the occult. The band scoffed at such charges.
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The summer of 1978 saw the group recording again, this time at ABBA's Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. The resultant album, In Through the Out Door, features "All My Love", a tribute to Plant's late son. The album was released with several different cover designs, each having the viewpoint of a different person in a bar watching a man burning something, which is revealed inside to be a Dear John letter.
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After a decade of recording and touring, Led Zeppelin was now considered obsolete in some quarters, as mainstream musical tastes had moved in favour of disco, and critical focus had turned to punk rock. Perhaps in response to shifting trends, In Through the Out Door features a great deal of sonic experimentation, making much use of Jones' keyboard skills, notably in synthesizer driven sections of the ten-and-one-half minute long "Carouselambra", and in "Fool in the Rain", which exhibits a Latin feel. These departures from the band's usual style once again drew mixed reactions from fans and critics. Nevertheless, the band still commanded legions of loyal fans, and the album easily reached #1 in the UK and the US (where it became the first album by a rock band to debut at #1 on the Billboard album chart).
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In August 1979, after two warm-up shows in Copenhagen, Led Zeppelin headlined at the Knebworth music festival. Close to 400,000 fans witnessed the return of Led Zeppelin and, with the release of In Through the Out Door on August 15, they were ready to tour again, planning a short European tour followed by another American tour.
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The 1980 American tour was not to be, however. On September 25, 1980, shortly before embarking on the U.S. leg of the tour, drummer John Bonham died of accidental asphyxiation after a day-long alcohol binge at one of Jimmy Page's houses. For two months the remaining band members considered whether to continue with a replacement, but decided that because of Bonham's death, they could not continue as Led Zeppelin. In December 1980, they announced that the group had disbanded. For many years afterwards, there would be rumours of a reunion, and plans for various collaborative projects. One short-lived project, which included former members of Yes and Led Zeppelin, was called XYZ, for Ex-Yes/Zep. Other than a brief demo recording (which was later circulated among collectors), nothing came of it.
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Two years after Bonham's death, Led Zeppelin released Coda, a collection of outtakes from previous recording sessions. In the years to follow, a steady stream of boxed sets and greatest hits collections would keep the band on the charts, as Led Zeppelin continued to garner heavy airplay on rock radio.
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