The 1975 Earls Court footage delved mostly into the acoustic, folk-rock side of Led Zeppelin. This side of the band is what separated them from the other blues-rock supergroups of the day. When they followed up the heavy-metal, riff-rock assault of Led Zeppelin II, with the acoustic-folk dominated Led Zeppelin III, people were dumbfounded. Page finger-picking an acoustic and using weird alternate tunings? Jones playing the mandolin? What the hell was going on? They were showing off their diverse musical influences and shoving them right in our faces, is what they were doing, and Earls Court highlights these moments in glorious detail. The first half of the show featured the band seated in chairs running through excellent versions of "Going To California", "That's The Way", and "Bron Yr Aur Stomp", which featured Jones on themandolin, and Page on the acoustic guitar. Plant was singing better than everhere. By now, the ultimate double album, "Physical Graffiti", had been released and Zeppelin paid tribute with rousing performances of "In My Time Of Dying" and "Trampled Underfoot". What a contrast from the acoustic set! Bonham's thunderous drumming really shined on these two songs, and Jones carried "Trampled Underfoot" with his unique and powerful organ riffs. This incredible set was fittingly closed with a great performance of "Stairway To Heaven". Page actually nailed his famous guitar solo, which is kinda rare for him, before following with some nice improvisation. This epic masterpiece just never gets tiring. They must have sold their souls to the devil to get handed that song.

The 1979 Knebworth footage is from the last live concert performance Zeppelin ever did. This makes it the most special part of the DVD for me. They tear through some of their newer material from the Presence and In Through The Out Door albums, which demonstrate how much they have evolved in just a few years. "Achilles Last Stand" was a thunderous rock and roll assault, and Page was notably in the zone during that song. This was his best performance of the entire DVD. (Dream Theater plays a great cover of "Achilles" on their Change Of Seasons CD - check it out). "In the Evening" was powerful. I always wondered how Page got the guitar sound on that song, and now I know. He yanks the shit out of the whammy bar throughout the entire song. Theyclosed with rousing version of "Whole Lotta Love", which after three sweat-soaked hours, dazzling the 300,000 fans into the wee hours of the morning, had morphed into a funky improvised jam.

Jimmy Page and the people who helped him restore, remaster, and produce this masterpiece deserve an award. The restoration quality of these 1970's, 16mm film segments is miraculous. The DTS and Dolby 5.1 surround mixes were even more astounding. They literally blow away many of the new DVD concerts, which were recorded and produced THIS CENTURY!  I have focused primarily on the four main concert performance in this review, but this DVD package also contains tons of other footage including performances on French, Danish, and British TV shows in 1969. There is also a version of "Immigrant Song" that was a digitized mix of two separate performances in 1972. This should have been left off the DVD. Sure there were a few other things to complain about. Sometimes, the footage goes into still shots, or slow motion shots, or speeds up, and other annoying camera tricks were used, but this was done very sparingly and was not a major distraction. I will definitely not fault them for putting out ALL of the footage they could find on the DVD. I only wish there were more.