Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes - Live at the Greek
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Free Music Notes for Live at the Greek
Free Music Review: Whole lotta talent, whole lotta music
Hit: 5 Stars
When this album first came out, it had several strikes against it in my book: first, the album was comprised of classic tunes remade by someone else. Second, the album was comprised of classic tunes remade by one of their original creators long after the fact. Finally,it's a live album, and live albums rarely either provide good sound quality or recapture the excitement of a live show. And I'm a longtime fan of both Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes.But I was very, very wrong.
First, the excitement and sound quality are definitely there. Kevin Shirley's production and mixing are top notch --- almost as if the man had master producer Jimmy Page looking over his shoulder the entire time. Second, the renditions of the old Zep tunes accomplish the near-impossible task of being both faithful to the original (Chris Robinson makes an eerily dead-on Robert Plant) and standing on the quality of their own musicianship. Finally, the partnership of Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes is brilliant. The chemistry is powerful, and the musicianship, both individually and collectively, is mindblowing.
My only regret is not having been in L.A. to catch the show!
Free Music Review: Songs Sound the Same as originals - that's why it's great!!
Hit: 5 Stars
First off, the Crows are a great live band. I wasn't even interested in the Crowes until I found out that Jimmy Page was touring with them. Being a die hard Led Zeppelin fan, I immediately took up interest in the Crowes, and got tickets for one of their shows. This CD is mainly Led Zep songs, which I am thrilled about. The songs are very faithful to the originals, and they play some diverse songs. Now beginning Led Zep fans might not like this, and wonder where Stairway, and Rock and Roll, and songs like that are...But serious Led Zep fans should appreciate songs like Nobody's Fault, In My Time of Dying, and Ten Years Gone- a song which would have been virtually impossible to do live if it weren't for the three guitarists. Of course that's not to say this album is devoid of the Zep songs that seem to play on the local classic rock station every 15 minutes (not a bad thing) They play Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker, Custard Pie, and the Lemon Song.
They also venture outside of Zeppelin. Some of my favorites other than the Zep tunes are the cover of the Yardbirds Shapes of Things, where they mix the Yardbirds version, and the Jeff Beck Group version into one great song, the BB King cover, and one of my favorite selections, the cover of the Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac classic Oh Well, which they nail.
All the Crowes are in top form, especially Chris Robinson, who does an alarmingly good job of covering Robert Plant, which is a daunting task for any vocalist. Jimmy is in good shape too! After all, he's the main reason I got this album. Jimmy sounds like he's having a lot of fun, and from the interviews I read, he really was. Unfortunately, Page blew his back out on the tour, and had to stop midway through, cancelling a large chunk of tour dates, including the one I bought tickets for (don't feel too bad for me, I still got to see The Who).
If you like the Crowes, you should like this album even though they don't play their songs, and if you're a Zeppelin fan, especially a die hard zeppelin fan like myself, you should enjoy this album. It doesn't really break any new ground, but they weren't trying to.
All in all, it's a fun album, and hopefully it will motivate Page to get back in the studio, like both the surviving members of Led Zep did this year. This is a great album.
Free Music Review: Oh my!
Hit: 5 Stars
I just found this album by a complete fluke. I didn't even know it existed. If you are a fan of Led Zeppelin, you NEED to own this record. I am not embellishing my opinion when I say, "STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GET THIS ALBUM! Now! Why are you still reading this? Get it NOW!"get.....it.......now......
NOW!!!!!
Free Music Review: Good for Zep Freaks
Hit: 4 Stars
Overall this is pretty excellent. I'm a Zep freak and a guitar player who plays mostly Zep so I look forward to any new recordings of the master, Jimmy Page. The singer from the Black Crowes does a pretty good job singing, I was impressed. The one drawback to the CD is the annoying [female] in the audience that screams at the into to every song, they should have filtered that out...it ruined some of the intros...Overall though a must have for fans of the Crowes or Zep.Free Music Review: Gettin a little thick in the middle
Hit: 4 Stars
I'm listening to the jimmy page and black crowes concert. I had to adjust the equalizers for this to be listenable: basically consisting of lowering the middle range ones. But this album is "better" on worse speakers, these speakers(120 watt B&Ws) bring out the fact that the sound is too thick throughout the middle and accentuate by their accuracy the general lack of definition probably due to it being a live recording. Now, turning down the middle range allows for somewhat of a wall of bass like what you could expect from led zeppelin music, I mean, custard pie is on right now, after all. But the recording levels are so high too, that I could break my apartment before I got the volume knob halfway up the dial. Now, the drummer, he's so shattered, I mean he's very precise but not very good and relies mainly on his middle range drum that has this thin sort of sound to it, and then the bass drum when used isn't brought out enough in the recording for it to come through as something special and unique like a separated member, making him sound even more mediocre. The whole drop down thing in Custard Pie just isn't brought out at all. So, the result is that I had more fun listening to this on my old speakers (40watt Sanyos) which could hide behind their muddy sound than I do on my new ones. And suddenly at the beginning of sick again, the drum/bass combination booms in more than did the drop down, drop down with drum response in custard pie so they're just full of--it that's all. I mean, sure this recording, for a concert, is fairly clean mainly, more technologically mastered and all that I guess you could say than song remains the same, this was recorded 26 years later, so you know, it should be even though you could argue each instrument doesn't separate out as much even as did the 73 recording (probably because there are too many guitars), but I can't believe Jimmy Page would be satisfied with putting this thing up and being happy about it enough to distribute it, whereas at the same time he's so damn stingy about old led zeppelin concerts which must exist on masters--you know they do--and that could be produced and sold, but he won't do it because as rumor has it he isn't satisfied with the recordings or the performances. Well, there are all those bootlegs out there and it is so frustrating the sound's so bad etc, and you just wanna say, come on man, you can put out a concert from say 1977 or I don't know 1980, why not, it won't kill you, I bet he's got master tapes of something, anything, doesn't he realize that if all those bootlegs exist, it's because people are STARVED for more of their music on stage. And it isn't always a question of the best concerts, there are bootlegs of mediocre performances, etc. but they're still fun to listen to because you have a window on a world gone, and I'm sorry but this album is a worse window into what had been, with all its slick recording techniques (which are questionable even still), than is a shoddy bootleg sounds like you're listening from a room down the hall. But I'm a sap and I love Led Zeppelin and just as I am in ecstasy over any bootleg you give me because you try to distill out what's wrong to get to the heart of something great, you can essentially distill out what went wrong here and get a little taste of what used to be, which was of course wonderful.