Field Trip Investigation
03/10/2009
This is from the brochure:
In a famous foot chase sequence from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blowup, the fashion photographer main character, played by David Hemmings, stumbles unwittingly on a gig by the quintessential British blues-rock outfit, the Yardbirds. As the lead guitar duo of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page trade chunky riffs on a version of the blues standard Train Kept A-Rollin’, Hemmings wades into the tightly packed — and strangely motionless — hipster crowd…
This refers to the two television sets, one piled on top of the other showing different films that are somehow interconnected. It refers to the Yardbirds, a band I have heard of before, playing the song Train Kept A-Rollin’ (I heard an Aerosmith cover of this one a few years back).
I listened to them on youtube and they’re o.k. I’m not crazy about them. They were some kinds of pioneers, famous for starting the careers of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Their genre was rhythm and blues and they were active in the mid 60s.
The Yardbirds started out with Eric Clapton, who left in protest of the band turning to a more pop-oriented sound. Jimmy page signed on as the new lead guitarist. Jeff Beck was hired and fired after a short interval. Finally Jimmy Page left and disbanded the Yardbirds.
Jimmy Page later formed Led Zeppelin.
I’m not really interested in this band so I’ll keep this short.
