John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin's bassist and keyboard player, was quietly playing backgammon and half listening to a phone-in radio talk show on New York FM.

"I was in a club last night when someone asked me if I wanted to meet Jimmy Page," the show's host suddenly offered between calls. "You know, when I think about it, there's no one I'd rather meet less than someone as disgusting as Jimmy Page."

Jones bolted up from his game. "Let me just say that Led Slime can't play their way out of a paper bag and if you plan on seeing them tomorrow night at the Garden, those goons are ripping you off. Now don't start wasting my time defending Led Slime. If you're thinking about calling up to do that, stick your head in the toilet and flush."

Jones, normally a man of quiet reserve, strode furiously across the room. He snapped up a phone and dialed the station. After a short wait, the talk show host picked up the phone.

What would you like to talk about?

"Led Zeppelin," Jones answered coolly in his clipped British accent. The line went dead. Victim of an eight-second delay button, the exchange was never given any air time.

It was a familiar battle, as Jones saw it. Although Led Zeppelin has managed to sell more than a million units apiece of all five of its albums and is currently working a U.S. tour that is expected to be the largest grossing undertaking in rock history, the band has been continually kicked, shoved, pummeled and kneed in the groin by critics of all stripes. "I know it's unnecessary to fight back," Jones said. True enough: The Zep's overwhelming popularity speaks for itself. "I just thought I'd defend myself one last time."

The night after that aborted defense, in the first of three concerts at Madison Square Garden, Led Zeppelin brought a standing-room-only audience to its feet with one of the finest shows of its six-year career. On Page's unexpected midset impulse, the band launched unrehearsed into a stunning 20-minute version of his tour de force, "Dazed and Confused." The tension of uncertain success was an evident and electric element in Zeppelin's performance that evening. "No question about it," lead singer Robert Plant enthused before returning to the stage for a second encore of "Communication Breakdown," "the tour has begun."