Remastered 'Song Remains the Same' even better

Throughout junior high and high school, weekend midnight movies in Wichita, Kan., were a rock 'n' roll mecca for me. I would catch musical movies such as AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Purple Rain." But I remember one film more than the rest: Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same."

That was my first midnight movie. I think I was in ninth grade, and I told my mom I was staying at a friend's house. We did the rebellious teen thing and sneaked out of the house to see the movie.

It blew me away.

The film comprises concert footage from the band's 1976 show in New York's Madison Square Garden, with some fantasy footage that spotlights each of the band members — vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, drummer John Bonham and bassist John Paul Jones, along with their manager Peter Grant.

I loved the feeling of the movie. It was big. It was loud. There are a few unflinching segments — security containing a violent fan, ousting another extremely stoned fan, and Grant's verbal attack on the building manager about bootleg merchandise hawkers, all of which pull the movie down to Earth.

While I loved the fantasy segments — Plant's Norse-inspired sword fighting, Page's mystical inner search as he climbs to the top of a mountain, Jones' "Jack the Ripper" irony and Bonham's obsession with speed and racing — what I really loved was the concert footage.

The performance provides the definitive song list for the band — "Rock and Roll," "Celebration Day," "The Song Remains the Same," "Rain Song," "Dazed and Confused," "No Quarter," "Stairway to Heaven," "Moby Dick" and "Whole Lotta Love."

That was a long time ago, but at last I no longer have to wait for VH1 or midnight-movie houses to show the flick because Warner Home Video has remastered the original movie and added a second disc of bonus features. (Atlantic Records has also remastered the films' soundtrack for CD.)

"The Song Remains the Same" can be seen in HD DVD and Blu-ray, in Dolby 5.1. All of which makes the movie bigger and louder.

The bonus disc features 1976 interviews with Peter Grant and Robert Plant, as well as media coverage of the band's performance in Tampa Stadium in 1973, and also about the band being robbed of $200,000 in New York later that year.

But what really caused my eyes to light up was the inclusion of live songs that were cut from the original film due to its length: "Over the Hills and Far Away," "Celebration Day," "Misty Mountain Hop" and "The Ocean," all of which are restored in the bonus features.

"The Song Remains the Same" will always be a special movie for me, even though its version of "Stairway to Heaven" isn't as tight as it could have been. That's a small complaint, though. I love every minute and every note.

---

E-mail: scott@desnews.com