The Song Remains the Same (2018

The Song Remains The Same is the only live album released by Led Zeppelin during their active career although it was a soundtrack to a rather eccentric movie. The album showcases performances from Madison Square Garden during the 1973 tour of the U.S.A. the performances display what was great about this band with seismic drumming of John Bonham over which the virtuosity of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones ride this particularly evident on an epic version of Dazed And Confused surfing on top of all this is the banshee wail of Robert Plant.The album is over 2 discs, the first disc contains shorter songs such as Black Dog, Rock 'n' Roll, No Quarter and Since I've Been Loving You. The second disc is for the more committed with epic versions of Dazed And Confused, Whole Lotta Love and Stairway to Heaven and for those with real stamina that dreaded staple of seventies rock shows the drum solo with Moby Dick. For me the best rock live album is The Who Live At Leeds and this album does not match that album for power and energy it can be a bit lacklustre in places. As I said this was the only live album of Led Zeppelin for a long time until Jimmy Page found some live performances for the enormous 3 disc set How The West Was Won this is a better live representation of Led Zeppelin at their peak and is right up there with Live At Leeds. As for the film if you want to see Led Zeppelin live get the Led Zeppelin DVD with some of the performances from this film plus a BBC concert recorded in 1970 this gives the full powerful performance of Led Zep.

OK, imagine this: It's 8:45pm on the evening of August 4th 1979. You're in a gently sloping field in Knebworth Park, Hertfordshire. The sun has long since gone down and all you can see on the stage are the standby lights on a series of Marshall MV100 amps. Figures are walking on the stage in front of the amp lights and suddenly... a staccato strike on the open D on the 6/12 SG double-neck rings the opening chords of "The Song Remains The Same". [That's how to use an electric 12 string!].I still get a shiver running down my spine thinking about that moment even now. It was one of those life changing experiences. And this album takes me back there every time I hear it. Especially now! The original CD release always suffered from a rather two-dimensional sound, but the remastered sound is BRILLIANT.This was always a favourite live album for me and my most played Led Zeppelin album. The packaging of the remastered CD looks great (kind of like a mini LP) but is functionally lousy - just try getting the discs out without touching the playing surface. But the music: WOW! So much better than "How the West Was Won", especially the 27 minute version of Dazed and Confused (you know, the bit from the end of the violin bow solo to the end of the track - totally sublime electric guitar playing from Mr Page proving that he even understands the super-lochrian mode!)But what happened to "In between last time we came and this time..."? OK, thanks for the extra tracks, but this omission is in the same category as the deletion of the cough on the early CD releases of Physical Graffiti which Pagey himself lambasted. I'm surprised he let this one through.But it's all about the music! There's that splendid title track referred to above (with the spine tingling open D), "Dazed and Confused", the Wah-Wah solo in "No Quarter" and that brilliant rock `n' roll medley in "Whole Lotta Love". And then you get the six tracks that didn't make the original release which I'm going to savour.So, just turn out the lights, turn up the volume and soak up the joy of one of the finest rock bands ever doing what a rock band does best.And as Robert says, "Shake it one time for Elvis...Alright!”

I bought this album the day it was originally released and the consensus among friends was that it was a disappointment. In a decade when so many less-regarded rock bands released exciting, classic live albums, it was a surprise that Zep failed to match them. The old faults are still there and tend to be on the better-known songs on the second disc. It's something of an endurance test too. The original album featured nine tracks across 100 minutes. The additional tracks add half an hour.What makes this album so appealing for me is the brilliance of the first disc, which constitutes an hour of great value rock music, some of it high-energy, some of it beautiful. The segued opening tracks, 'Rock and Roll' and 'Celebration Day' comprise some of the most exciting live music you'll hear and were the biggest highlights of the LP release. The playing is incendiary, a quality that was restricted on the studio version of the former track. Most of the other less-heralded tracks also come into their own in the live arena, though 'Black Dog' and 'Misty Mountain Hop' arguably lack that extra kick.Meanwhile, 'The Rain Song' is even tastier than its studio counterpart. Robert Plant's sensitive delivery complements Jimmy Page's gentle, dripping, epiphanic notes. The menacing blues of 'Since I've Been Loving You' is a winner as is the buoyant 'Over the Hills and Far Away.' 'The Ocean,' which always sounded to me like the sort of thing Zep could knock off in five minutes, is a joy in this context.J.P. Jones's eerie 'No Quarter' is moved on to the first disc in exchange for the gargantuan version of 'Dazed and Confused' which took up the whole of the second side of the LP. 26 minutes seemed too long then and it does now, regardless of sundry effects and Page's guitar bowing. The momentum of the first disc is lost. 'Stairway to Heaven,' not surprisingly, doesn't match up to the standard of the original. 'Moby Dick,' which featured a drum solo of acceptable length on Zep II, becomes the dreaded extended version here. The new track, 'Heartbreaker,' is a welcome addition, but 'Whole Lotta Love' splutters to the end. Trying to replace/replicate the weird middle section was always going to be tough.Despite its shortcomings, I reckon 'The Song Remains The Same' is full value for its price, given that you get a killer disc lasting an hour. You can always skip the second one.

Much better and fuller document of their original 1977 issue.