The third of three blogs.
I started to be given two-hour worship slots.
Led Zeppelin regularly did two-hour concerts. They’d start with their high energy numbers. Even the slightly quieter songs would generally always build. There’d be a deliberate change of mood with the blues. Then the extensive Dazed and Confused. After that, their acoustic set, would find them sitting on stools, with all sorts of multi-stringed instruments, including an upright bass and a stripped-down selection of percussion for John Bonham as he emerged from behind his drumkit.
“This is the time when I usually have a cup of tea, but I’ll just sit down instead,” said Robert Plant in an BBC recorded session.
As I’ve already stated, those musicians who couldn’t quite get beyond stretching out their Sunday morning worship set, soon lost interest in the wave of extended worship sessions that were engulfing most of Europe. Others of us – needed the two hours. We knew praise was more than singing songs, we also knew that prayer, intercession and spiritual warfare may well look like singing songs! We weren’t stretching our Sunday morning schedules, we were going on a spiritual journey, freed from the shackles of Sunday church responsibilities; to quote Louis Armstrong, 'We had all the time in the world.'
I’d learnt that a Led Zeppelin concert had set pieces. The mood and energy levels would change. But there again, since long before the Charismatic Movement, churches had been structuring their Sunday services around different focuses, starting with something traditionally entitled ‘the call to worship’, often followed by an all-age friendly element, and or a more confessional or reflective time. The four hymns, usual to most services, were chosen to best reflect these ‘moods’ – though no one would ever use such a godless and emotive word when explaining the tedious hymn-prayer sandwich. Don’t blame the Charismatics or Pentecostals for bringing emotionalism into the church. Way before them, and centuries earlier, churches knew to start with a rousing hymn as a call to worship, before using more sober tunes to bring a sense of reflection and heart preparation for the coming sermon. Psalm 100:4 tells us to come into God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise. One of the golden rules of worship leading is, never start with confession. It’s tempting, it’s almost logical and I’ve seen it done – disastrously! Don’t do it, obey God’s instruction from Psalm 100. In Psalm 121 the advice is repeated, don’t look at the scary height of the mountains that surround you, look even higher to the God who is able to rescue. It’s not pure emotionalism to start with an up-tempo song, it’s biblical and very logical. Start by celebrating God, then you might slow things down and find more reflective or personally inviting language.
Even Led Zeppelin knew these basic dynamics – start fast, then you can go slower, build again, slow down again (even becoming unplugged and acoustic), then build again, to the eventual finale that includes an almost unending crescendo which moves the audience from being spectators to participators.
It’s not just Led Zeppelin that did these things. The rock group Queen knew all these elements too and used them to their advantage. The eventual participation of the crowd grew to be an expected and essential part of any performance. Plenty others have sought to copy and use the same components in their own shows.
With the release of Zeppelin’s second album in late 1969, the opening track, Whole Lotta Love, soon became their regular show ender. The earlier rock’n’roll encore medley slowly found itself spliced into the closing third of the song, which I’ll call (true fans will understand) the Boogie Mama segment. In their 1973 versions, this had become relatively short but still present, in 1972 this medley of songs could exceed 20 minutes in length, with other Zeppelin material also getting briefly spliced into this section, such as Bring it on Home and The Lemon Song as examples.
Was I influenced by these live recordings? Historically, I was listening to this material long before I bought a guitar and started leading worship. But influenced? No!! Music is music and has been since someone banged a stick against a rock, then later bashed a piece of metal and heard it resonate.
Worship is in admiration and awe of God, and Jesus told us to do it in spirit and truth. It's never a performance, it's a spiritual discipline and delight. It's never simply copying something else - it must be honest and truthful to the one bringing the sacrifice of praise.
What I have noticed, is that at the end of an extensive time of worship (6-hours, 12-hours, 24-hours, more), the last hour often takes a different and wonderful direction. After the much slower sections, where prophecy may have arisen, prayer ministry has taken place, and where there has been much personal soul searching, we would turn to praise again, thankfully and overjoyed with God’s grace and healings. A fresh wave of celebration would descend. The accuracy of these songs was no longer as important as the environment they were enhancing. It’s hard to quite explain what was happening in these final minutes, half-hours, or even longer periods of time. Joy seemed to manifest as a powerful heart-filled reality – which, I’m sorry, is beyond my ability to describe with my limited language. The Bible talks of ‘the joy of the Lord’ or of ‘joy’ as a supernatural ‘fruit’ attributed to the Holy Spirit – I’m not talking about feelings of happiness; I’m trying to express a God-infused joy! Suddenly the need to make a joyful noise became a reality over and above a particular song. Leading this section, I found myself regurgitating some real golden oldies, yet everyone was smiling – including God! I can also detect far more movement in the room. Previously, some people had claimed their territory on the floor, with a strategically placed scatter cushion, their Bible, a prayer journal, highlighter pens and an environmentally friendly reusable water bottle. These things were either carefully re-housed or more insensitively pushed to the sides. People wanted to dance, or at least bounce, leap around, spin and sway. Any tentative song-list I may have had for the evening is now out the window, I’m simply singing praise songs from some back catalogue found in the recesses of my ageing mind, or more often than not, just making up one or two-liners people can easily access in the midst of their joy. It was a little taste of heaven come to earth. Because of our humanity, it was messy but fun; simple yet deeply liberating, flawed though graciously touched with the divine. What’s not to like?
One thing I know for sure, God knew about the power and freedom of praise, the significance of crashing cymbals and the value of joyful noises, centuries, centuries, before Led Zeppelin. Perhaps all I did in my late-teens was stumble across an ancient God truth, which had unfortunately been quenched by traditional churches, but thankfully exploited by modern musicians – in order for my education in biblical praise not to be unnecessarily hindered by stale Christianity. So, a brief nod to, Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones for unknowingly modelling and interpreting, what I believe, God had already seeded in the origins of music.
If you want to know more about biblical praise, the dynamics of Christ-centred worship and the theology of extended times of praise - an unleaded version, but with a whole lotta Scripture, then read on by getting a copy of School of Praise.
I hope you enjoyed our late-20th century journey through charismatic corporate worship, paralleled in part with my 'other' partial obsession. Please don't CANCEL me. For more on the Charismata - checkout my 7-part blog. In part 7, you really will find my spiritual influences in worship leading.
Merry Christmas,
Simon Rennie
December, 2023
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