Finally picked up Celebration Day-the 2CD/Blu Ray combo-which means that after a couple of weeks shy of five years, I can finally get rid of that bootleg I downloaded to tide me over until the official release!
Some random thoughts:
Given the monumental fuck up in Dazed and Confused, I thought the solution was rather clever. They altered the tracks a little bit so, while the band was still playing about three different parts at once, it sounded like they MEANT to be playing a confused section, as if the instrumental section had collapsed under its own weight. I couldn't help but be amused, looking at the CD/DVD booklet, to notice that in the songwriting credits Dazed and Confused was credited to "Jimmy Page, inspired by Jake Holmes."
Guess that's the end result of Holmes finally suing Zep over that one a few years back.
Plant was a LOT better than I remembered him being. Jason Bonham was on all night, and John Paul Jones was his usual rock solid self. Page, well, Page even at his best was always messy-the common phrase used to describe his playing was "his fingers got stuck in the strings." But as Page had suffered a broken finger that delayed the show a few weeks, I'm willing to cut him some slack. It was odd, but to the better, to see and hear him not use the Danelectro on In My Time Of Dying and Kashmir-I've heard so many bootlegs with Page playing those songs on that old black and white Danelectro, but both songs sounded a lot better on different guitars. Especially Kashmir, which I will flat out say is the best version of it the band ever done. It's not the best performance the band has out on DVD-that goes to the Royal Albert Hall show from 1970 from DVD-but it's pretty damn good.