CELEBRATION DAY

FIrst, I'm a die-hard Zep fan from my earliest days. I have everything official and quite a bit of not-so-official stuff. Robert Plant is my all-time favorite musician. Seventies Jimmy Page could do no wrong. I have heard nothing but good things about the famous O2 concert. I come into this with expectations about as high as they can be for a one-off show from guys in their 60's performing 30+ year old songs.

And for the most part boy does the band deliver. From the BAM BAM opening of Good Times Bad Times to the final note this is no cash-in on past glory. This is a compelling group effort that find the bands frequently reaching well-oiled machine status. Powerful. Tight. Demanding attention.

Robert Plant in particular is in stunningly good form. Past the age of 50 most singers are pale imitations of their past glory but here Plant is as constant and impressive as ever. Yes, the octave has changed, but he simply nails it.

As does John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham. The rhythm section is the no-questions- asked musical driver of all good things on this night. They frequently carry the proceedings in impressive fashion. Equally satisfying are the songs featuring JPJ on the piano (No Quarter, Trampled Underfoot and Kasmir). All are standouts.

Which brings us to the lone bit of trouble from the performance. Put simply, Jimmy Page is a shell of his former self. While quite good and tight when teaming with the rhythm section, when featured on his own it's borderline embarrassing.

Specifically, the solos found on Celebration Day are amateurish. It's obvious Page can't play more than a few quick notes at a time and thus relies upon well-worn guitar tricks such as the "dramatic" sustained note and non-stop use of the Wah-Wah and volume pedals. There are more than a few occasions when you can see the rest of the band trying to will Page through sections that were obviously problematic during rehearsals.

Which brings me to why I can't give this release more than 3 stars. On the one hand it's a really great performance from 3/4's of the band. But there isn't a single version of a song here that I would prefer to hear over other live versions of these songs, either from The Song Remains the Same, The BBC Tapes or How the West Was Won or the Led Zeppelin DVD. Even from the Page / Plant No Quarter shows.

Yes, there are two songs not found on any of those releases. Good TImes serves as a great opener that quickly proves this is a foursome bent on getting it right. And For Your Life might be the best, most compelling song from the entire setlist. But outside of those two there's no reason to ever really play the CD because other, better versions are readily available.

The DVD fares better because it allows for modern video equipment and techniques. Too bad much of this is squandered with the dreaded quick-edit approach used by far too many editors. Also, someone please explain to me why they chose to frequently replace pristine, digitally capture images with grainy bootleg images? I understand this was was done with 70's material because it's all they had. There's no excuse for it here. It's a cheap trick and one that detracts from the overall quality.

Honestly, I wish I could give this a better score. In terms of comparing to expectations...it's more like a 4 or 4.5. But in looking at it against the deep and high-quality Zep catalog, it's just a 3. I will add a star for historical purposes, as you can't really have a Led Zeppelin collection without Celebration Day.

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