Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live at the Greek (Vinyl, CD and digital outlets)

On the face of it, it looked like a case of what Father John Misty had observed on his recent, excellent Mahashmashama album, “Time makes fools of us all”.

When reflecting on the 2000 double album Live at the Greek where Jimmy Page joined the Black Crowes for blues classics and a bunch of Led Zeppelin songs, Crowes singer Chris Robinson was dismissive.

"I didn't really have that much fun doing it. It was alright, and Jimmy's a phenomenal guitarist, but to me it was just a job.

“I'm not a big fan of Robert Plant's lyrics or his singing, so that part of it was a little boring for me."

Which, we'd observe was quite a large part of Robinson's “job”.

Today however, with the release of the expanded three CD/six LP 20^th anniversary edition of the concert (with 16 further soundcheck songs and Black Crowes originals) Robinson is much more positive.

“The new Live at the Greek box set brings the whole experience of our work with Jimmy into a vibrant, electric, mystical and powerful perspective," he says enthusiastically.

Doubtless his earlier assessment was because the Crowe's record company refused to allow their own songs to be used but now, with them included, we get a better sense of how the concerts at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles unfolded.

From the furious openers -- Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day, Custard Pie and Sick Again -- Robinson throws himself into the role of frontman for a crunching hard rock band where Page and the Crowes' Rich Robinson duel for attention in this crisp new mix by producer Kevin Shirley.

Then it's in to a couple of Crowes' songs: No Speak No Slave (from their Southern Harmony double) and the terrific treatment of Otis Redding's Hard to Handle which .

From there on the first disc brings out material not previously available: Wanton Song, Misty Mountain Hop, Hots on for Nowhere, Wiser Time and Mellow Down Easy along with Zepp's What Is And What Should Never Be, a sharp treatment of BB King's Woke Up This Morning (with Page providing the busy squiggly backdrop before a stuttering solo which reaches right back to Yardbirds days) and back to Zepp for Ten Years Gone.

Whether this is a replication of the running order at one of the Greek shows is open to question – the Yardbirds' Shapes of Things, delivered slow in the manner of Rod Stewart on the Jeff Beck Truth album, pushed back the midpoint of the three discs for example – and perhaps hardly matters.

To have the Crowes' Remedy and She Talks to Angels in this context confirms just how powerful those songs were in a concert setting, and adds texture to the original release.

And Chris Robinson makes a meal of Whole Lotta Love.

The four of the five soundcheck tracks at the end of the third disc are all Zepp songs Custard Pie, another version of You Shook Me, The Lemon Song and Ten Years Gone then a 10 minute jam.

Mostly these are quite faithful versions of the Crowes and Zepp material, but those who felt a bit cheated by the original Live at the Greek release – and that seems to include Chris Robinson – will rightly be satisfied by these whopping and noisy three and half hours of a collision between an exciting rock'n'soul American band and the master of the Marshall amplification of rock'n'blues.

Hard to handle?

Not really, especially if you set everything in your sound-system to 11.

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You can hear this album at Spotify and buy the CD and vinyl sets through Southbound Records here.