For two nights between October 18th and the 19th of 1999, The Black Crowes joined up with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles for two performances that they’ll never forget. Originally released on the musicmaker website, followed by a 2000 release on the TVT label, this 3-CD set consists of the recording not just at the Greek, but at Jones Beach in August of that same year in 1999. Thirty-six tracks of not just a hard rock band, but blues-rock powder keg of Zeppelin classics, blues covers, and Black Crowes music flown into the mix.
You feel the power, the chemistry, the intensive vibes flowing into the collaboration of two giants, walking towards the venues, giving audiences a night they’ll never forget. Going from the Crowes classics from albums such as The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, Amorica, and Shake Your Money Maker. Despite what was going on behind the scenes, you can’t deny the sound, the heaviness, and the remix that’s on this set that’ll make you want to turn it up to a maximum level.
Whether it’s the fast-paced take of Peter Green’s time with Fleetwood Mac on ‘Oh Well’ with intensive arrangements done by both Rich Robinson and Jimmy Page tearing the roof off on this number, the intensive drum beats behind Otis Redding’s ‘Hard to Handle’ which has been the Crowes song honoring the soulful classic Gorman puts his heart into the beat, or the alarming nod to May Blitz’s ‘For Madmen Only’ behind ‘No Speak No Slave’, Page and the Crowes take it all the way to downtown.
The Crowes covering Zeppelin classics might have been a challenge. I didn’t know what to think of it at first, when I heard it originally nearly 26 years ago, my first thought was, “How are they going to do those songs? Zeppelin’s music is timeless”. But once I heard their take ‘What Is and What Should Never Be’ they proved they can take it up a notch, showing their tipping their hat to the giants alongside Page, but Plant, Bonham, and John Paul Jones.
The descending riff at the end, the sliding midsection, laid-back bluesy groove, it becomes this ticking time bomb until the climax with a scat vocalisation that Chris channels with his powerful arrangements to follow Page’s roller-coaster ride and then on the same thing by opening the show with ‘Celebration Day’, ‘Sick Again’, and the sermon gospel of their psychedelic metallic edge behind ‘Your Time is Gonna Come’.
I wouldn’t compare Chris Robinson to Robert Plant because that would be too much of a cop-out. But there are nods to Slade’s Noddy Holder, Terry Reid, Rod Stewart’s time with The Jeff Beck Group and the Faces, and of course the late, great Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and Humble Pie. Chris is his own voice. And for him to carry the torch of Zeppelin’s music, that’s a lot of shoes to fill in and honour their legacy and being the next hammer of the gods in this situation many years ago.
Then, its off into the country sunrise by going off into the night with a heart-warming take of ‘She Talks to Angels’ from their first album Shake Your Money Maker. Page adds that 12-bar and soft-warming atmosphere into the Crowes composition. Chris takes the steering wheel with the backing band behind him by taking us one final goodbye as we go deep into the soundchecks where the group and Page take us into what they were doing during that time frame.
The energetic touches behind ‘Custard Pie’, Dixon’s ‘You Shook Me’ which Zeppelin covered on their first album in 1969 but the Crowes takes the blues-rock orientation with a simple twist of lemon, but adding in that flaming fire into the song, knowing the power is in the music whilst ‘The Lemon Song’ gets the explosions up and running to raise hell and a somber farewell of ‘Ten Years Gone’, this was something that could’ve happened in the next year or so.
But it’s the fire of a jam session Page and Rich were doing together that closes out the story. Gorman joins the improv, carrying the beat to see where the duo will lead into next between riffs, grooved out soul, and driven arrangements that are in awe as you vision yourself being at the soundcheck, watching two men, duking it out in the boxing ring like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire, 1974, known as the Rumble in the Jungle.
Listening to that jam session, it was going back to the Physical Graffiti days as if it was left from the cutting room floor that Zeppelin had a blast enjoying themselves working on, continuing where ‘Trampled Underfoot’ had left off. But the Crowes and Page bring it all home into your own living room.
With the release of Becoming Led Zeppelin in IMAX that came out in February of this year, who knows what the future will happen between the two counterparts. But it’s almost like going through your old scrapbook, going back to the performances in what Page and the Crowes have accomplished at the Greek. They can probably tease us with something and do it the right way without any complications. But it is a delivering indication of blues, hard rock, psychedelic, and soul music into our blood system.
