In March, Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes released an expanded, 25th anniversary edition of their classic 2000 concert album Live at the Greek. The collection features remixed and remastered recordings of the original album’s 20 songs, plus 16 previously unreleased tracks.
The album mainly featured songs recorded at concerts that the Led Zeppelin guitarist played with The Black Crowes at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in October 1999. Additional performances from an August 1999 show in Wantagh, New York, also were included.
In celebration of the reissue, Page and Black Crowes members Chris and Rich Robinson recorded and filmed a conversation that premiered as a radio special on SiriusXM’s Classic Rewind channel during the Memorial Day weekend. During the chat, Page and the Robinson brothers reminisced about the collaboration, and expressed mutual praise about working together.
The concerts featured Page and The Black Crowes teaming on versions of various Led Zeppelin and Crowes tunes, as well as some select blues covers.
Page Was Impressed by How The Black Crowes Played “Ten Years Gone”
In one video clip from the program, Page recalled how great it sounded when he played the 1975 Zeppelin tune “Ten Years Gone” live with The Black Crowes.
“‘Ten Years Gone’ was a song that I wrote for Led Zeppelin, and it’s on the Physical Graffiti album,” he noted. “And it was something I’d worked on at home. It had all this sort of guitar orchestration on it, but I’d never heard it like [the way it sounded with The Black Crowes], apart from on record.”
Jimmy then explained, “[I]n the days of Zeppelin, I’d try and do as much as I could just with the one guitar [in the studio].” Page then pointed out that when he played “Ten Years Gone” with The Black Crowes, “suddenly, I heard all these harmonies going on. … It was like I’d died and gone to heaven. And I mean it, for sure. It was a really emotional moment.”
Jimmy also praised Chris Robinson’s vocals, noting, “[H]e’s singing it beautifully with so much emotion.”
Page added that the whole band, including Rich Robinson and fellow guitarist Audley Freed, played the song perfectly.
“Everyone knew everything absolutely,” he enthused. “Everything was absolutely one hundred percent.”
Chris responded by telling Jimmy, “Your troops were ready for their orders.”
Playing with Page Changed How The Crowes Did “She Talk to Angels” Live
Meanwhile, in a separate clip from the SiriusXM conversation, Chris Robinson noted that the guitar part Page played on the live version of The Black Crowes’ 1991 hit “She Talked to Angels” influenced the way the band performed the song after that.
“Jimmy’s contribution with the B-Bender [guitar] … changed that song for us subsequently for the next 25 years,” Chris maintained. “It really gave us another outlook on the song. And as we progressed into different things, and we were always kind of changing things here and there, but even the way we play it today, I think it was never the same because of the inspiration of the part that Jimmy played on it.”
Rich then added that he even had The Black Crowes’ current second guitarist, Nico Bereciartúa, learn Page’s part for live performances.
“I gave him my B-Bender [and told him,] ‘You learn that part on this guitar,’” Rich shared. “So Nico’s playing it. He trying to do what [Jimmy did].”
Incidentally, a B-Bender guitar features an accessory that allows the player to bend the instrument’s B string. The modification enables a traditional electric guitar mimic a pedal-steel guitar.
More About the Live at the Greek Album and Its Reissue
The original version of Live at the Greek, which was subtitled Excess All Areas, was recorded during a two-night stand at the Greek Theatre in L.A. in October 1999. The 2000 release featured only the Led Zeppelin material performed at the concerts. The reissue adds renditions of Black Crowes songs and other tunes from the shows, plus previously unheard soundcheck recordings.
The Live at the Greek reissue is available now as a six LP vinyl box set and three-CD package. The vinyl collection features 180-gram discs housed in individual sleeves, and includes a foldout poster. The CD set features the discs presented in a six-panel digipak, and also includes a poster.
(Photo by SGranitz/WireImage)
