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Rating: I consider the live album to be the appointment that every quality band (or solo artist) cannot miss. The challenge for each group that wants to prove it has reached a goal, the confirmation of conquering the peak, and the most evident way to show one's worth. The live test for the artist - going far beyond being a Greatest Hits perhaps with more background noise - seeks to freely convey to the listener (let's say of good music...) that energy only perceivable during the show, allowing anyone who wishes to participate to comfortably sit in an armchair and dream of being in the front row at a Budokan, Hammersmith or Madison Square Garden, where the volume or screams win more than the technique or sound cleanliness.
We could define it as a mandatory passage, perhaps driven by the desire to testify an era that is closing, such as the desire for self-celebration or even the craving to package a nostalgic document. But perhaps, in most cases, the motivation closest to reality is to eternalize on a tape the vigor and physical prowess that only a live act can offer.
For the Zeppelin, 1975 was marked by unpleasant events, with the Plant family, vacationing on the island of Rhodes, experiencing the consequences of a severe car accident in which the singer's wife suffered serious fractures to the skull and pelvis, while Robert sustained injuries to his ankle and elbow, with general bruises for the children; for Bonham – having just become a father to daughter Zoe, being away from his family did nothing but provide opportunities for the drummer to indulge in the excesses that life on tour offers. Meanwhile, the period of inevitable inactivity led to the realization of a documentary film edited by Peter Clifton, where images from concerts are combined with those featuring the band members.
The opening is left to the lively performance of "Rock'n'Roll," which immediately makes clear what the audience should expect from a Zeps show: energy and sweat in abundance. It's Page who maneuvers broadly throughout the track, skillfully giving free rein to his guitar, leaving room for the powerful rhythm section, showing a Plant trying everything to not suffer from comparison with the studio version. The same fabric is shown in "Celebration Day," which captures the Zeps in a performance that brings to the forefront more than the previous one, the more unruly side of a musicality that hits the mark only in this dimension, more than the clean version we already knew. The formidable title-track ferries the listener into the touching "Rain Song," where the intoxication of the guitar refinements that merge ad hoc with Jones' electronic textures make it, together with "No Quarter," one of the most evocative performances. Listening to "Dazed And Confused" allows us to understand the transformation from the original, immersing fully into that synergy between Plant's singing and Page’s work/refinement, where the two let themselves be mutually carried away in a dialogue often comprehensible only to the protagonists. The pure emotions that naturally emerge from the introduction of "Stairway To Heaven" are the same that take shape during the poignant vocalizations that follow, only to transform into real chills down the spine of the listener during the driving instrumental where a synchronism between technique and passion, which marked the golden age of a certain way of making music, is perceivable. The presentation of the "Moby Dick" starts with the lethal opening riff leaving Bonham for the next ten minutes behind the drums as the undisputed protagonist, vigorously striking the skins, with a public participating in every slightest hint of rhythmic provocation. This time "Whole Lotta Love" holds the role of closing. And what a closure! From the thundering riff to the fiery vocalizations, we witness a fabulous medley that twists the track to the unbelievable with the inclusion of blues and rock & roll quotes from the golden years, then brisk pace and a strident solo at the end do the rest.
An album born more to cover the period of absence from the scenes due to the mentioned misadventures of the Plant family but also to combat the thriving bootleg market that was then strongly flourishing, rather than for mere artistic conviction. As Page himself would later recall, the execution in question does not excel for extreme brilliance, but remains the first documented live test on vinyl that the group conceived, and that in its modest imperfections, still today for the historical significance achieved, for many, adequately endures the title of a classic.
[A due note: this double live album remains, as specified at the beginning of the review, the soundtrack of a film dedicated to the band and not of a concert, so much that the main objective is projection in movie theaters. The editions to come would make the product available first in Vhs format and then in Dvd (the last with two indispensable discs) whose viewing can only generate amazement allowing capture of "our "intentionally involved in a fantastic setting dressed as semi-serious actors, offering a Bonham in the guise of a gangster, Jones dressed as a black knight and Page embodying the hermit of Zoso. For the music discourse, the video support offers us a seductive version of "Since I’ve Been Loving You", not available in the original version, at least until the expanded edition arrived on the market shortly after the album's decennial].
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