STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
Welsh odyssey for two of world’s greatest rock stars
CASTELL y Bere is as wild and remote as it was when it was first built by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the 13th century.
Its ruins stretch along the summit of a rocky outcrop on the eastern side of the Dysynni Valley, looking out over the valley’s green farmland which stretches out to the Cardigan Bay coast.
It’s not one of Wales’ most famous castles, being built by a native Welsh prince as opposed to the Normans or Edward I (Llywelyn ab Iorwerth is also known as Llywelyn the Great, though the castle was taken by Edward in 1283).
But sitting atop the ruins recently were two kings of a very different sort.
Perched on the stone ruins, with the huge mountain Cadair Idris rising behind them, were Robert Plant and Brian Johnson, two of the biggest names in the history of rock music.
Until recently, when he was forced to retire because of the threat of “total deafness”, Johnson fronted AC/ DC, who have sold 200 million albums worldwide.
And Plant was the singer with Led Zeppelin, who broke all records for the amount of money made from touring, and redefined rock-and-roll excess.
He has a relationship with Wales that goes back through his whole life. As a child, he would holiday in the country with his parents, and he has been interested in Celtic history for decades. At the height of Zeppelin’s fame, they began to write their third album, Led Zeppelin III, in a small cottage immortalised in the song Bron-yr-Aur Stomp.
He also donated money towards a bronze sculpture of Owain Glyndwr which was unveiled at Pennal Church, near Machynlleth, in 2004.
Plant and Johnson met in rural mid Wales to talk about Plant’s career for the Sky Arts series Brian Johnson: A Life on the Road.
They first meet on the Penmaenpool Bridge, which spans the Mawddach river between Dolgellau and Barmouth, with Robert Plant carrying a sword and wearing a sort-of robe.
“In 1973 Zeppelin made this strange movie called The Song Remains the Same,” Plant tells Johnson.
“And each of us chose a kind of topic that we wanted to intersperse the music with so I chose to come up here. This is the very same apparel.
“This is the Mawddach Valley and the beautiful Mawddach river that goes out to the Cambrian coast there. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This is called the Misty Mountains here.”
Plant gets a lot of inspiration for his lyrics and music from the Welsh landscape and mythology, or as Johnson puts it, “the mythology of all this Welsh stuff ”.
“From an early age my mum and dad brought me here,” says Plant. “At school I was really interested in the different culture between the original tribes and those coming in from Europe. They just pushed all the Celts and original Celtic tribes back into these hills and so when I was at school I was intrigued by the difference between the two cultures, the history, the whole idea of mythology, stuff like that.
“Coming from the Black Country, this, compared to the industrial Midlands, was such a relief to everybody.”
Gazing out over the low-lying land just before the Mawddach river reaches the sea, he says: “Look at this here, it’s empty. Plenty of room for everybody. We’ve both lived in places where there’s no change in the seasons. You get the sun tan lotion out and that’s it. But in this place, you really know where you are in the whole cycle of life, really.”
Johnson, whose role as AC/DC singer was sensationally filled by Axl Rose, of Guns N’ Roses, so they could continue to tour, says: “Driving in, you know, from England and all, through these beautiful roads and the little villages and I’m wondering, ‘Why have I not come here before?’”
Plant is fascinated by Castell y Bere and the surrounding hills and valleys, described as “a place nearby that’s been really special... over the years and a retreat from the madness of touring in the Led Zeppelin days”.
He explains it to Johnson: “This is a valley that comes out into the sea near Tywyn, which is just north of Aberdyfi. And it’s a fantastic old castle that Llywelyn, the great king of the principality of north Wales, this was one of his stomping grounds where he was trying to hold back the English. For many years he succeeded because down here below us, what’s now pasture, once upon a time was actually the sea.”
He goes on: “I came up here after Led Zeppelin II, which we recorded mostly on tour because we played so much in America at that time, with Maureen [his wife] and my daughter, Carmen, and a dog called Strider, and we rented a cottage that I used to go to when I was a kid, which is not far from here, and we began the writing of Led Zeppelin III up there.
“And it was great because it was so far away from the chaos of touring, you know what it’s like. You guys kept going, we had to stop. The idea of going from those gigs that you know about, where there is complete turmoil, to come to these places gave us the kind of foundations for Led Zeppelin III, which was much more pastoral and acoustic based.”
Johnson, blown away, says: “Look at this place, it’s stunning. Stairway to heaven. We’re going to talk about your life on the road but it’s pretty hard to get started when you come up here and look at this view.”
After Plant and drummer John Bonham, who met when Bonham approached Plant to tell him he needed “the world’s best drummer” in his band, teamed up with guitarist Jimmy Page and bass player John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin were born.
By the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, Led Zeppelin “had become so huge that they were now actually bigger than The Beatles, a feat up to that time thought impossible”, the band’s biographer, Mick Wall, told the programme.
They broke all records for the amount of money made from touring, thanks in part to their physically huge manager, Peter Grant, a former wrestler, who completely changed the way money from touring was allocated, so that it was now weighed heavily in favour of the band instead of the promoter, as it had previously been. They toured the US with their own private plane.
“They didn’t just live to excess, they were rewriting the rules of the road. They lived like the Romans without the lions,” said Wall.
“By the end of their tours, their rider was 50 pages long. These guys lived like no rock stars had ever lived before – or since.”
John Bonham died after a drinking session in 1980, which led to the end of the band and Plant going solo. He is still a solo artist today.
■ Brian Johnson’s A Life on the Road is now showing on Sky Arts and on Sky On Demand.
TO MANY, the only thing Donald Trump got wrong following last weekend’s allied airstrike on Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons programme was boasting “Mission Accomplished”.
The joint assault by the UK, America and France put the Middle East dictator on notice that he’ll pay a heavy price for murdering his people, but the job is far from complete.
The bombing of Syria, justified as it may be, unfortunately yet conveniently came during what was arguably the worst personal time yet for the beleaguered Donny.
It was a week in which damning details of ex-FBI boss James Comey’s book hit the news, the FBI raided the offices of his lawyer Michael Cohen and the probe into Russian election meddling deepened.
It sent the president, who is increasingly concerned over porn star Stormy Daniels’ claims they had an affair, into a Twitter frenzy and led to the obvious comparison with one of his predecessors.
Once the heat of the airstrikes cools, the question will be: Was the Syrian raid by Trump akin to Bill Clinton’s bombing in Khartoum the day his alleged mistress Monica Lewinsky was set to testify in his sex scandal case?
The Pentagon said the success of the weekend’s assault on three Syrian targets would set ‘animal Assad’s’ chemical weapons programme “back years”.
We can only hope that’s the case, given the limited scope of the action.
The attack was designed to rightly minimise civilian casualties and damage to Russian assets amid fears that, if Putin’s punks on the ground were struck, a much wider conflict would have been sparked.
To my mind Trump, May and Macron were right to order the strike, and also to focus it on chemical and biological facilities.
It is vital that the international rule of law against the use of those horrific agents be upheld and the participation of the UK, the US and France was important in that respect.
But it’s troubling if Trump’s decision to launch an attack was in any way influenced by the domestic issues he continues to face here.
He is well known for his eagerness to deflect attention away from the real issues that trouble him with unfathomable outbursts coming out of a clear blue, or his case, dark sky.
His use of the phrase “Mission Accomplished” would back up claims he is not truly engaged with the entire situation in the Middle East.
Trump, who as we all know has a D- in history, used those words despite there being no greater symbol of American misjudgment and mistakes in war.
No one could forget how, in May 2003, US leader George W. Bush uttered the same phrase in his “victory speech” aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln following the Iraq invasion.
What followed the then president’s “Mission Accomplished” was one of the longest and most expensive conflicts in American history.
At the time Bush spoke, 139 US soldiers had been killed. Since then the death toll has topped 4,000.
Trump’s choice of words was poor but then again, he doesn’t seem that clued up on history and foreign affairs – just weeks ago he announced America was getting out of Syria.
The attack was carried out with the help of the UK and France, but if the bombings succeed in getting rid of the chemicals that Assad unleashed on his people, Trump will take the full credit.
If it’s a miserable failure, he will blame the French and us.
Together with Trump’s growing problems at home it begs the question: Just which mission was accomplished?