I just had the pleasure of watching and listening to this again ! Not saying I,m old ... I saw it in 1976 in the local theatre !! Since then I have the VHS and DVD ... This time was the first in hi def ! And it was on TV !! (HollywoodSuite70s)Since I could put it on my PVR , Rewinding to review is very useful to check out some favourite bits . I would have given anything to be one of those lucky fans that took in the legendary shows !! I wore out my first LP , so I do know the music quite well !! It is still amazing to see the unique style of John Bonham and to see him even chatting it up with John Paul Jones a couple of times ! Even with all the edits , differences and time in between since last seeing it ... I still get happy watching this classic Led Zeppelin masterpiece !! No one will ever perform the same :-) :-)

Pretension runs all through director Peter Clifton's 137 minute long, 1976 quasi-documentary on Led Zeppelin and a series of three concert performances at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, during July of 1973, called The Song Remains The Same. Aside from the concert footage, the film weaves assorted silly fantasy sections into the film, as well as footage of backstage goings on, such as security guards beating rowdy fans, the theft of $203,000 from the band's safe deposit box at the hotel they were staying at, and band manager Peter Grant's bullying of various Garden personnel over matters trivial and not, among others. The film was not the first attempt at a true 'rockumentary,' but it was the first rockumentary to try and add extraneous fictive material so the whole could be seen as a work of art, apart and above the actual music. Prior to The Song Remains The Same such films, like Michael Wadleigh's 1970 documentary Woodstock, on the famed 1969 rock festival, were basically strictly journalistic endeavors or attempts at cinema veritè. Not so with this film. And that's its fatal flaw.While the music, and even the band's lapses into self-indulgence, are great, the film's cinematic pretensions bring the whole effort down into a barely passable cinematic mediocrity. In a sense, parts of the film play out almost like a precursor to Rob Reiner's seminal 1984 'mockumentary' classic This Is Spinal Tap. Numerous shots where the band is actually 'live' in concert are mixed in with scenes of them on stages at Shepperton Studios that do not resemble their American venues, and numerous other little alterations had to be made. The film would have been so much better had they simply filmed the concerts, then did the fantasy sequences and combined them, rather than the time and money wasting rigmarole that ensued.Unlike the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews for a bad film, The Song Remains The Same, a merely mediocre film, was almost routinely savagely attacked from Day One, mainly for the fantasy sequences. That said, like the Beatles film, the Led Zeppelin film did well at the box office. Unlike A Hard Day's Night, though, The Song Remains The Same was, indeed, a highly influential film. Almost all concert films and rockumentaries that have come since have this film's DNA stamped on it, for the good or the ill. And, unlike the Beatles film, this film's improvs are restricted to the musical stage, where Plant and Page were masters of that art form.

I say this on faith, because obviously I have not seen all filmed concert performances. But out of the many I have seen, this ranks near the top.Led Zeppelin in what I really believe was their prime. So powerful! The soaring vocals of Robert Plant, the beyond brilliant guitar playing of Mr. Page, and most powerful, the unreal drumming of the late great John Bonham.Every song in the film rates a 10 on the performance scale, the best I think, is Dazed and confused. It starts out strong, draws you in, and finishes in an absolute stunning climax, which is jaw dropping, even if you've watched it 1000 times.The fantasy segments are all well done, and interesting to watch. The part where Jimmy Pages ages, and reverts to youth, was groundbreaking at the time, and still is great to see.If there is any part that could have been skipped, its where the late Peter Grant is mercilessly berating an executive from the venue. He was known to be a bit of a thug, and this shows it. A bit unpleasant to watch.This is the next best thing to being at a Zep concert. If you have a big screen, and surround sound, you will have an unforgettable experience.

I've become a major Led Zeppelin fan and, since I was born in the 80's, I will never get the chance to see them live in concert. So, being born as late in the century as I was, this concert film was a godsend and gave me an awesome chance to watch one of my favorite rock bands working their magic on stage. The film is collected from footage over three days during their 1973 performances in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The band performs some of their greatest pieces, including "Whole Lotta Love", "Since I've Been Loving You", and "Stairway to Heaven". Now I see that Zeppelin seemed to have a great energy and stage presence; it's a shame I'll never been able to experience it in person. Jimmy Page is incredible to watch and John Bonham has some killer moments (i.e. his killer drum solo during "Moby Dick").The music is, of course, incredible, but the movie has some flaws. I didn't really care for the fantasy sequences, though I don't regret their inclusion. I loved the fact that each member of the band was given the chance to visualize their own segment and it was a cool glimpse into their creativity. I just didn't feel the movie needed the sequences. They may have been better as additional supplemental material. Also, the movie is an endurance challenge to watch in it's entirety. At 2.5 hours, good music or not, it gets to be a bit difficult to watch in a straight run. A 2.5 performance in person with the ideal sound and atmosphere is one thing, it's different when you're viewing it on a television screen. Regardless, I loved this movie. Led Zeppelin is one of the rock legends and now I've gotten to experience them in concert (even if it was in limited format).