Search - Led Zeppelin :: The Song Remains The Same (Remastered / Expanded) (2CD)

Stunning Remastering, Blazing Performances...This Version El

Just Bill | Grand Rapids, MI United States | 11/20/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I admit I wasn't a fan of The Song Remains the Same live album when it was released back in 1976 (was it that long ago?). The concert seemed flat. When the CD was first issued, I thought it sounded even worse. Hardly any highs or lows -- sound-wise and performance-wise.



But Jimmy Page and Kevin Shirley have waved a magic wand over the master tapes. This isn't the same album any more. It's dynamic, vibrant, blistering. The bass guitar is there now! The guitar rings out clear as a bell. And Plant's voice is right up front where it belongs.



I've been listening all afternoon to this remastered edition of The Song Remains the Same. There have been projects around the house I was supposed to get to. There was another new CD I wanted to hear. But I couldn't take this 2-CD set out of my player. It held me in its grip for the entire concert.



Led Zeppelin continues to astound some 25 years after they broke up, and a full three decades plus after this concert was performed at Madison Square Garden in 1973.



If you've held off buying this because the original version left a bad taste in your mouth, rest assured this is a unique experience now. It's crisp as a new can of Pringles and twice as tasty.



I highly recommend The Song Remains the Same remastered 2-CD edition."

What a waste of opportunity...

Puffany | Australia | 11/22/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This updated version had the potential to be up there with "Made In Japan", "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" etc. etc. as a classic live album even if the performances are somewhat uneven mainly due to them going into unknown territory and natural causes. That's the great thing about LZ if you listen to their live bootlegs - no version of any song is the same as another. It's a hit and miss but always exiting game.

Plant's voice changed dramatically for the worse after hitting his peak in Australia in 1972. However, he still hits plenty of peaks as well as the lows here. In fact, still great compared to years to come!

As stated by other reviewers, yes the sound is great and the edits are incomprehensible. TSRTS was never an honest document in either version and the disappointment is now larger than previously. I've got bootlegs of the Madison Square shows and therefore can confirm there are huge chunks missing from many songs: Black Dog was always played in full unlike this circumcised edit; Dazed and Confused has been chopped in the section before San Fransisco; No Quarter here has Page jumping straight into the his solo whereas we know he feels his way around before exploding; Heartbreaker has a chunk of Pages solo missing after the drums and bass come back in just before WLL; Whole Lotta Love's edits are glaring even to the blind. There's alot more but i'll leave it alone. The question is, why?? Another confusing band decision has The Ocean placed at the end of the 1st cd when it was actually played as an encore - I even looked at the time length of the 2nd cd and there's no problem there with room to fit it in (??). (I've burnt myself a copy with The Ocean where it should be).

On a positive note, it's great to hear the extra songs even if they aren't all the ultimate renditions.

I'll still give it 3* based on the sound quality and the sheer balls they play with at times - the title track and The Rain Song have never sounded better and that includes other bootlegs from the same, and different years.

Let's hope the surviving band members listen to their fans and decide to release a 3rd version as a triple cd without the edits. Hey Jimmy - you readin' this, mate?

Overall, I'll still recommend it. Make sure you keep your old copy - if you don't have it, hurry and get it before it's deleted.

As Otto the bus driver on The Simpsons says - "Zeppelin rules!!"

"

"The Same"? Not even close, and for the better

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 12/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm one of those who saw the movie when it came out in 1976, more than once in fact. It was an immediate 'Saturday midnight' favorite where I grew up (Belgium). By then the band's reputation was larger than life and there simply was not much of an opportunity ever to see them live. I bought the double-album when it came out, and I never understood why the album was so much maligned by both fans and critics. I thought it was pretty darn good. Now after 31 years, and amid a frenzy of renewed Led Zeppelin activity (catalog on iTunes, the "Mothership" best of, and of course the upcoming one-off show in London--among swirling rumors the band may tour proper in 2008), now comes a newly expanded version of this album.



On "The Song Remains the Same" (2 CDs; 15 tracks; 132 min.), the first CD starts off with the classic "Rock and Roll" and "Celebration Day", then dives straight into 4 previously unreleased tracks, including a rousing "Misty Mountain Top", but even better is the slowburner "Since I've Been Loving You". CD1 (10 tracks, 60 min.) finishes with 4 songs from the "Houses of the Holy" album, which the band was touring behind at the time, including a previously unreleased "The Ocean". It is impossible for me to listen to "No Quarter" and not think of the John Paul Jones 'fantasy sequences' in the movie. CD2 (5 tracks, 72 min.) brings one more new track ("Heartbreaker") but the lead-off track, a 25 min. epic "Dazed and Confused" towers over everything else. It is for me the ultimate Led Zeppelin track. I usually skip "Stairway to Heaven" (overrated and played to death on classic radio), but still like the "Moby Dick" drum solo, as well as the closer "Whole Lotta Love".



The remastering by Jimmy Page sounds fantastic, and the packaging (with nice liner notes from Cameron Crow, with lines like : "The brown cardboard sing in the window simply read 'It's here'"--referring to the release of Led Zep II in late 1969) is done quite nicely. All in all, I am really pleased with the remastered and expanded CD release of "The Song Remains the Same", which is like discovering a new album in the Led Zeppelin catalog. (Incidentally, I did get to see the band in concert once, on their 1980 European tour, only months before John Bonham passed away.)"