Credit: Far Out / Open Culture
Sun 13 September 2026 16:30, UK
Jimmy Page was never afraid of wearing his history on his sleeve whenever he made public appearances.
He didn’t have the same solo back catalogue as Robert Plant has had over the years, but when you look at the history of Led Zeppelin, it was always Page’s baby, and he was going to do everything he could to preserve the tunes that they made during their prime. There was nothing wrong with him tinkering with songs until they were perfect on the remixes, but Page knew that some of the greatest moments of their entire career happened whenever they were onstage together.
A lot of the best Zeppelin records do have that sense of a band cutting loose in the room, but some of the tunes were basic skeletons for what they would bring to the live show. John Bonham was already an animal on the record, but hearing him embrace his inner animal playing his drum solos and watching Page become a sonic wizard when playing the theremin was what kept people thinking that they were some of the high priests of rock and roll whenever they came to town.
Then again, there were always going to be tunes that had to be sacrificed as well. ‘Dazed and Confused’ needed to have something else onstage than the ambient interlude that happens midway through the song, and even though they did revive some of their best tunes when they played their biggest concerts like Knebworth, Page felt that he never quite heard the versions that he wanted to hear whenever they performed live.
Because, really, how the hell are you supposed to be one of the biggest rock bands in the world and make everything work on one guitar? It’s one thing for John Paul Jones to strap on an eight-string bass when working on a song like ‘Achilles Last Stand’ live, but the more Page got antsy in the studio, the less likely the band were to play some of their classic songs without the traditional bells and whistles.
There are exceptions, like bringing out different orchestras to play the dramatic descent in ‘Kashmir’, but a tune like ‘Ten Years Gone’ is a tune that belongs in the studio most of the time. Page developed a guitar symphony that no one in their right mind would have been able to figure out on one guitar, so when he finally got the chance to see his tune come to fruition with The Black Crowes, it was like a dream come true for him.
For years, the song that he had heard in his head was finally realised with the right amount of people, and he felt that their version that he played was how it was always intended to be played live, saying, “[I]n the days of Zeppelin, I’d try and do as much as I could just with the one guitar [in the studio]. 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.”
Further reading: From The Vault
And while The Black Crowes were a more blues-flavoured band to begin with, they were practically the perfect candidate to play the song. Chris Robinson had the same kind of raspy voice that could do justice to what Plant had sung back in the day, and since he didn’t have to fit three different guitar parts on his own, this version of the song is where Page becomes more of a conductor than anything else, steering the band through every single change that the song needed.
But that’s been the magic of what Page has been about all along. He could be one of the greatest rock and roll guitar players when he wanted to be, but his true calling was being able to carefully construct all of his songs until they had reached their full potential. It wasn’t always easy, but when it worked out well, there are very few feelings on this Earth that could compare to it.
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