Wither Jimmy Page?

Lou Reed

I'm not at all sure I'd put Paul Westerberg on that list.

Marty

I know this will piss off plenty of aging boomers, but here goes: I heard Led Zeppelin live three times back in the 70's. I went through my youthful guitar god worship phase as did many other baby boomers who got hooked for awhile on white redo's of black blues. IMO the original Blues Breakers LP got about as close to black blues by melanin-challenged Caucasians as I can remember. If I wanted to listen to blues since the mid-eighties on, I just spun Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, etc. etc. The heavily doctored studio "magic" that Peter Grant poured into Led Zeppelin's LP's was more than apparent to me when I saw them live. They couldn't replicate the "magic" live, for what I heard (even zonked) was a pale imitation of their records. I have seen several aging black blues "legends" in my life, and they all did a much better job of replicating the "magic" that was on their studio recordings. Don't get me wrong, on there own terms I still listen to Led Zeppelin's "Black Mountain Side" & "Bron-Ar-Aur." - and those are instrumentals.

Chashmal:

Lou Reed

Yes. Sort-a. I still must go back to Reed circa
Velvet Underground (the banana LP with Nico) which was really a stunner for the times. Some say Sgt.Pepper captured the times, but I say the banana LP did better. The banana LP was to music what Tom Wolf's "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test was to literature about the time. "Heroin" captured the subject and the mentality of the addict to a T, and still speaks to the junkie state of mind.

Byegolly,

page/Plant did a fanstastic job of playing there Zeppelin catalog when I saw them during their late 90's tour in support of the "Walking into Clarksdale" album.

Live performances of many classic rock acts from the 70's I've seen in the 90s and since have been superior to what they could muster live back in the day due largely to:

1) fewer drugs/ more consistency
2) years of honing their performances of their classic tunes
3) better sound engineering for live performances

In addition to Page/Plant, others that have honed their live acts over the years that I have seen are(practice does make perfect)The Moody Blues, Dick Dale and Yes.

Just last night I saw The Church perform live and the performance overall was golden! Even they have been around now for over 25 years. God, that makes me feel old!