Music Babble

Alpha Hammer and I discussed live Zeppelin back in the day and why I'm not into them much in spite of Zeppelin being what got me into rock music. He talked about what you could expect from a band who showed up drunk and drugged to "every" gig, had a singer who couldn't possibly hit the high notes like in the studio and who stretched every song out to 29 minutes long.
The conclusion I came up with: if you saw Zeppelin live in the 70s, you probably should have seen them under the influence of substances. And while I only periodically do it I do try to listen to live bootlegs of them from time to time in the hopes of finally unlocking some mystery that I like.

I'm not familiar with BBC Sessions and have only given cursory listens to How The West Was Won but you're right about that getting really good reviews, better than TSRTS.
TSRTS's shaky reputation, well, those filmed segments really weird a lot of people out (AVGN, most recently) and...I know some people who love it but I guess it was never a critics' fave like Leeds or Ya-Ya's.

So if I want live Zeppelin, it's gonna be...

....Celebration Day. Which I like both audio and video wise. Yeah, they're old and they play the songs straight but I'm not complaining. Whatever. If CD is the end of Zeppelin I will not complain, a nice note for them to finally go out on.