One of the most orig­i­nal and dis­tinc­tive songs Led Zep­pelin ever record­ed was the exot­ic, eight-and-a-half minute “Kash­mir,” from the 1975 album Phys­i­cal Graf­fi­ti. In this clip from Davis Guggen­heim’s film It Might Get Loud (2009), Jim­my Page explains the ori­gins of the song to fel­low gui­tarists Jack White and The Edge. Then Page demon­strates it by pick­ing up an old mod­i­fied Dan­elec­tro 59DC Dou­ble Cut­away Stan­dard gui­tar that he played the song with on some of Led Zep­pelin’s tours. (Watch Kash­mir live here.)

In 1973, Page had been exper­i­ment­ing with an alter­na­tive D modal, or DADGAD, tun­ing often used on stringed instru­ments in the Mid­dle East, when he hit upon the hyp­not­ic, ris­ing and falling riff. The song came togeth­er over a peri­od of a cou­ple of years. John Bon­ham added his dis­tinc­tive, over­pow­er­ing drums dur­ing a two-man record­ing ses­sion with Page at Headley Grange. Singer Robert Plant wrote the lyrics while he and Page were dri­ving through the Sahara Desert in South­ern Moroc­co. (Nei­ther Page nor Plant had ever vis­it­ed Kash­mir, in the Himalayas.) Bassist and key­board play­er John Paul Jones added the string and horn arrange­ments the fol­low­ing year. In a 1995 radio inter­view with Aus­tralian jour­nal­ist Richard Kingsmill, Plant recalled his expe­ri­ence with “Kash­mir”:

It was an amaz­ing piece of music to write to, and an incred­i­ble chal­lenge for me. Because of the time sig­na­ture, the whole deal of the song is…not grandiose, but pow­er­ful. It required some kind of epi­thet, or abstract lyri­cal set­ting about the whole idea of life being an adven­ture and being a series of illu­mi­nat­ed moments. But every­thing is not what you see. It was quite a task, because I could­n’t sing it. It was like the song was big­ger than me.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Led Zep­pelin Plays One of Its Ear­li­est Con­certs (Dan­ish TV, 1969)

Thir­teen-Year-Old Jim­my Page Makes his BBC Tele­vi­sion Debut in 1957

Hear Led Zeppelin’s Mind-Blow­ing First Record­ed Con­cert Ever (1968)

They weren’t quite The Bea­t­les, and they did­n’t go out in the same style. (Catch The Bea­t­les’ rooftop gig here.) But R.E.M. gave us 30 good years (ok, maybe 15), and, after call­ing it quits ear­li­er this week, we thought it worth­while to present their final live moments. So here it goes: R.E.M.‘s final encore played in Mex­i­co City back in Novem­ber, 2008. It’s a 36 minute set that fea­tures “Super­nat­ur­al Super­se­ri­ous,” “Los­ing My Reli­gion,” “I Believe,” “Coun­try Feed­back,” “Life and How to Live It,” and “Man on the Moon.”

Thanks to @opedr for the great find and, for good mea­sure, we’re throw­ing in a vin­tage R.E.M. con­cert record­ed in Ger­many in 1985 from the Fables of the Recon­struc­tion tour. These were good old days.

On a cold day in Jan­u­ary 1969, The Bea­t­les, who had­n’t played live since 1966, took to the rooftop of the head­quar­ters of Apple Records, locat­ed at 3 Sav­ile Row, in cen­tral Lon­don. And there they played an impromp­tu last gig, much to the delight of Lon­don­ers on near­by rooftops … and to the cha­grin of the police.

At the time, The Bea­t­les were record­ing their album, Let It Be, and the rooftop show let them run through var­i­ous tracks from that last effort. Songs played dur­ing the set include “Get Back,” where the Bea­t­les were accom­pa­nied by Bil­ly Pre­ston on the key­boards, and “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got A Feel­ing,” “One After 909,” and “Dan­ny Boy.” And final­ly “Dig A Pony” and anoth­er ver­sion of “Get Back.” We have the last song above. Watch a full playlist of videos here.

Famous­ly, The Bea­t­les’ live lega­cy ends with the police shut­ting down the show (it was a noise vio­la­tion, you know?) and John Lennon utter­ing the immor­tal words, “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and our­selves, and I hope we passed the audi­tion.” That’s going out in style…

Foot­note: It’s not clear which band played the first rooftop con­cert, but one thing is for sure. Jef­fer­son Air­plane played their own rooftop gig on Decem­ber 7, 1968, and Jean-Luc Godard filmed it. Once again, the police pay a friend­ly vis­it. Watch it here.

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