One thing that even I didn't realize was that although I saw the 2 NYC ARMS shows , and certainly Page played with enthusiasm, watching some of the stuff on YouTube......There were certain points where Page was pumping his right arm, but not touching the strings !!!!! Ronnie Wood was playing/covering or doubling the rhythm guitar. I play guitar, but when I saw these shows I was about 75 ft. away, and Wood was barely seen, if at all. To simplify, sound was coming out , but JP's right hand wasn't playing. This is partially why Page was able to dance around the stage like he was still in Zep. I actually have some really good Firm audio/video, but unfortunately the 5 NY area shows I saw Page was not sloppy at all. It's just that even according to my friend, Page had almost lost his ability to solo. Not sloppy at all, just Jimmy unable to connect phrases together, playing fractured licks. His technique was pretty good, actually.

From what I heard and read, even despite Bonzo's death, ultimately yes the right decision was made. Behind the scenes Robert was really fed up with the drug/alcohol situation, Page in particular, but also Bonzo(just listen to some of the quite diminished 1980 performances). Even Peter Grant was in bad shape. I think JPJ was kind of neutral concerning the band's shape. If you really research this thing, It really seems that Plant was hellbent on escaping a not really exaggerated sinking From the breakup, Page was the most affected. He sunk allegedly even deeper into various addictions, and even his guitar skills began to erode, arguably only to recover at the end of the 80's.

I have heard a few times that this was actually Jimmy's favorite Zep album. One reason I could see is that arguably this album has a ton of Jimmy's famed "guitar armies". You must remember that this was 1976, and besides Hendrix there were few if any attempting the dense layers of guitars colliding, dovetailing, meeting up in harmony or descending into dissonance . Hendrix of course died quite earlier, so Page emphasized the guitar trickery on the album as opposed to the much more hook able licks/riffs on earlier albums. Maybe NFBM is really the only somewhat commercial track, and even that starts with just a guitar/vocal duet. Judging from the earlier releases, It's entirely possible the alt disc will have many stripped down/lower overdub versions of the regular songs. Many want to hear Bonzo as loud and clear as possible, along with JPJ. What I want ??? Forget it. I want ALS with even more pleading and chiming harmonies and complete overdub madness. This is LED ZEPPELIN, isn't it ??? Isn't the music supposed to sound awe inspiring and powerful ????!!!!!!!!

The evidence is all in from the boots from early on to the 1980 tour. Page was definetly sloppy at times but at his highest technique level Page COULD play 7/8 as fast as most shredders. Just listen to the many 73'-75' D&C double time sections after the vocal verses ended. I am a guitarist and these are murder to figure out, Page is not only burning but jumping all over the place. And as many have pointed out when he plays slower he plays with much more creativity and emotion than 95% of all other famous guitarists.

Yep I respect all who pointed out how Page's guitar army was back and there were some really good solos, etc.,. But for me even when this album first came out, it was like something from the Island of lost toys from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. IMO this album stands out very jarringly from the rest of Page's catalog.

What is equally ironic is how many metal bands( Heart, more rockish. Iron Maiden, early Queensryche and dozens of others have very clearly stolen the horse-charging galloping beat from ALS. And many examples are extremely close, no microscope or audio analyst necessary. It is not even exaggerating to say that Iron Maiden has forged their career on this basic pattern. But Page probably doesn't care, knowing that no one is going to ever match the grand majesty and power of the original. Let them try. Ha Ha Ha !!!

The correct overall decision, yes, but from many sources Page sank into a even more dangerous drug and alcohol stupor. This is not well known, but before Page was allowed to participate in the U.S. ARMS shows, there was an intervention. The lineup was shocked by Page's physical frailty and mental shakiness. Clapton, as a former junkie and a friend of Page, had to tell Jimmy he could only join the tour if he quit heroin before the tour. Jimmy did, but he allegedly did this by doing massive quantities of coke and Jack Daniels. For the last 25 years Jimmy's weight has often changed drastically due to the booze struggles. Supposedly the drugs are long gone.

Yes, Coverdale prospered, he's a hired hand ??? journeyman ?? Semi-genius self promoter ??? User of other musicians as sub-contractors, and parasite of others' styles ?? That's probably most accurate. But I still think he actually has musical talent. Many musicians who have talent go into styles and genres without good judgement.

The suggestions to play Tea For One or Walter's Walk are really good, also I'm Gonna Crawl. But also why not Carouselambra ??? I kind of heard that the band was not making anything close to their previous efforts to present new or old material live that hadn't been played before. TKAR I'm not counting because any bar band could nail that song in a half hour. I also want to know, of all of you who are so fond of the 80' shows, how often do you listen to them ??? More or less than the 77' shows, or the 75' shows ???

Yeah after Purple Coverdale must have shifted at least 30 or more(guessing) band members out, back in, in for a month, blah blah. Typically a sign of some heavy issues. And the comments about Coverdale with his baritone voice, totally true. David displayed this not often enough, and he sort of screwed up a bit by not emphasizing this enough, instead doing all the other things he Was not that great at.

The stuff I heard live with Coverdale in Purple was with Tommy Bolin on guitar, and perhaps I am aurally hallucinated, but I don't remember those weird soul vocals. The stuff was much more bluesy and rockish, probably from 76'. But even the 74' stuff posted Coverdale has the basic ability, if even then not the best taste. As all his subsequent stuff and with Page, a lack of restraint and inability to tone down the totally overwrought sexual hysterics does Coverdale in.

Actually I don't know the exact shows but when Coverdale first joined Purple live he sang much more naturally and didn't have all the bizarre baggage that really started creeping in with the Whitesnake album Slide It In. Too bad, he is one of the the best examples around of someone with a very good voice ruining it with stupid mannerisms. Like I said , track down his live Purple stuff, IMO he really is pretty good. Forget CP2, I know many liked the first, but many also hated it, besides Page and the guitar army returning.

I think it's great that Page fans can squeeze every possible drop out of Coverdale/Page and the Firm stuff. Certainly the guitar stuff on the Coverdale thing was long overdue. Lord knows, I tried, tried, and tried some more to really get into this stuff. Live, however, CP totally kicked ass, Page even kicking ass on the Whitesnake tunes. Ridiculous that the band never made it to the states. Word of mouth would have filled the arenas sure enough.

I give much credit to all who try to analyze this tour in any sensible fashion. It is true that the band does sound better from audience tapes. And thanks to Sue for the best performance list. But in most of the posts members/fans are trying very hard to present a rather successful tour. Some said it was just a "warmup" for the states, but IMO Page and Bonzo were hardly in shape for any tour. Had they played the way they played in Europe, the critics would have torn them apart. And Plant could have used the critic response in addition to the major drug/alcohol issues affecting the playing of the band to finally leave. Sorry to be be negative, but this scenario was entirely likely.

I saw the Firm in 85' and 86' five times in the NYC area. The shows I saw unfortunately did not match up to some of the ones others have mentioned. Most of the shows I saw Page was very lethargic and his soloing was not really happening. To be fair though, I do have various audio/video where the band is jelling and Page is really using his string bender to amazing effect. I think Jimmy made it very clear later on that he simply had to get out and re establish himself and the Firm was not meant to scale any lofty artistic heights.

Absolutely agree. Today's overall music scene is like looking in a pair of binoculars from the wrong end.

I definetly prefer Zep. However, there are certain apples vs. oranges issues here. Pete Townsend was basically the rhythm section of the Who. You can clearly hear this when Townsend would try to solo, Moon and the Ox would just sail off into space. And although Page is absolutely more versatile than Townsend overall, Townsend is superior as a rhythm guitarist. Page would Often lose a rhythm or be having a tug of war between him and Bonzo or him and Jones live. But that quality also made Zep more unpredictable. And Plant is possibly the best rock singer ever, although Daltrey could easily be in the top ten. Of course Bonzo is #1 forever, but Moon is not far behind. And the Who did cheese out some by going on without Moon.

There is a old deleted album called "Guitar Boogie" which as I remember features 3 tracks each from Page, Clapton, and Beck. I'm pretty sure they all were 17 or 18 at the time. Jimmy plays these fast boogies and a B.B. King number, (or a soundalike) and lo and behold, he actually has tremendous speed and spot on slow blues technique, all with much soul and feeling. Jimmy absolutely wanted some rough edges, but as witnessed from all the boots, 77' was when Jimmy's technique became at times not quite professional, and unfortunately his playing became sloppier and sloppier until the mid 80's at least.

Boy, you must know somebody, be a sharp observer, or know someone who knew Jimmy's tech at various times. I totally agree that Jimmy not only mishandles the Dano, which requires a delicate touch, but all his guitars at times. When you are using Extra super slinky strings, you can't have a sledgehammer attack. Even going back to Zep's start, Jimmy would pick too hard and cutoff the Sustain, volume, and tone sometimes. Towards the end and also with the ARMS shows Jimmy had a big problem with the attack/ Left-right hand coordination, squashing and cutting notes off unintentionally.

Excellent detective work. But if that was the setup for the 80' tour, that damn Dano still had ill tuning stability. In fact, I'm pretty sure Page used 2 different ones, you can see this in that they had two different size pick guards. Not in the same show, however. Could be wrong, This info came from another Zep site.

Just one correction Page replaced the standard junk Dano bridge with a Tune-a-matic with the regular 6 string saddles. Pretty sure he also put Grovers in place of the std tuners. Still, that rattletrap often went out of tune. Although sometimes Page's dissonance would sound interesting, ultimately during IMTOD or Kashmir for me I would end up irritated. Kashmir IMO sounded so much Better when Page moved over to his trans-performance Les Paul.

I got a video of one of the Jap shows and I must admit that although the album wasn't for me, The live show was top-notch. Jimmy Had no problems slaying the Whitesnake songs and giving total justice to the Zep stuff. Coverdale , although certainly not Plant, sounded very good and could hit the high notes Plant had to abandon practically 20 yrs ago. The album songs sounded far more energetic live. Had the band hit the states, eventually IMO the shows would be well attended.

Well, out of all the albums/companions released so far, this is certainly the biggest mystery. I mean, there is hardly any bootleg studio stuff out there from this album !!! I have to be honest, I have no idea what's gonna come out. One guess is a stripped down version of ALS, as Page has in these releases released no overdub versions of favorite songs.

That's right, you shouldn't be looking too much, especially if you want to develop serious stage presence. Solos, sure, or huge leaps On the neck, sometimes you have to look.

The problem with strings is that despite the general rule that the heavier the strings the more sustain, volume, thickness of sound and less string breakage, and tuning stability is basically true, in practice there are many contradictions. If you are starting on electric A good idea would be to start on a .009 set and see how easy bending and vibrato are. If the strings feel like rubber bands than try a .10 set or later a .11 set. I must point out that even among great guitarists using a .11 set is not common because if you are doing a Lot of bending or fast leads many people's fingers simply cannot adjust to the thick strings, regardless of effort. It's just that starting out players should try out all gauges, there is no "one size fits all". Playing with the wrong gauge can definetly hamper your playing; a good teacher or guitar tech can help immensely because your guitar may be badly setup or the style you want to concentrate on Sometimes is really geared to certain string gauges. I use a mixed .10-.11 set, Ernie Ball. Used to use just .11 sets, but wrists started acting up.