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This week at The Tryon Theatre is “Becoming Led Zeppelin” (MacMahon 2025), a documentary exploring the origins and inspirations of the highly celebrated and influential band. 

The film’s creators have done an impressive job curating archival footage, with many previously unseen interviews and footage from the band’s early performances incorporated throughout the film. This historical footage is perfectly juxtaposed against new interviews of the band members, their current reflections providing novel and wry insights into their inception and their collaborative creative process. 

Though the eponymous group at the center of the film is now inseparable from the legend of their success, that was not always the case. The early days of their formation found them playing to small and predominantly confused audiences, their embracement of new sounds and musical techniques too novel for many of the first ears to hear. 

The genres and artists who served as muses for the band were obscurities to their potential audience, their musical foundation as mysterious to their potential fans as the new directions they were exploring. “Becoming Led Zeppelin” does an excellent job of examining these early days, providing new scope and texture to the band’s masterful musical talent. 

The most impressive element of this film’s composition is the balancing of the iconic music, which is featured heavily and poignantly. Any fan of Led Zeppelin’s music in attendance will expect to hear the operatic vocals clearly, feel the deep riffs in their chest, and have their pulse pound in time with the beat. This film succeeds in recreating the desired effect of live music, each note and lyric heard in perfect fidelity, an emotional and enveloping experience. 

As with any film that explores an artist or band’s music, the majority of those in attendance will know and love the music featured in the film. Such enthusiastic adoration will understandably drive attendees to keep time and mouth along to the lyrics. And while we do celebrate such excited participation, we do need to ask that our patrons refrain from singing along or speaking loudly during times of bombastic beats. We hate to curtail any expression of cinematic joy, but respect for the other patron’s capacity to hear the music themselves is of paramount importance, immersion being the key to any of the best movie-going experiences. 

For any filmgoer who is unfamiliar with Led Zeppelin and their catalog, this film does provide a satisfying education. However, the film will have less impact than any patron already in love with their music. The selected tracks punctuating the film provide its emotional backbone, an infectiously stimulating current of nostalgia, an electrifying experience for any Led Zeppelin fan. The filmmaker’s love of the music and the band is evident in this documentary, a love they hope to instill in each attendee. 

We hope you will join us soon for all the terrificly timed tunes in “Becoming Led Zeppelin”!