It’s easy to forget that this Led Zeppelin live double album is, in fact, a movie soundtrack.

I distinctly remember going to see it in a small cinema on a Saturday afternoon one-off screening when I was a teenager. It was prefaced by a ton of rock music videos (a novelty at the time), which the projectionist repeated several times until he had a cinema full of loud and impatient denim-clad headbangers. 

We should probably have stuck with the videos, because the Zeppelin movie is something of a dog’s dinner. Its basically a concert film of some shows they played at Madison Square Garden at the height of their fame. But its padded out with pretentious fantasy sequences for each member of the band, plus manager Peter Grant.

Plus, it includes a full 20-minute plus version of Dazed And Confused, in which Jimmy Page whips out his violin bow to torture his guitar ad nauseam. (I nearly dozed off at that point.)

This track takes up a whole side of the album too, but it is redeemed by the awesome power of some of the shorter tracks (notably opener Rock And Roll), plus of course Stairway To Heaven.

I remain a big Zeppelin fan of their less self-indulgent moments, and regret never getting the opportunity to see them in concert. I have however seen singer Robert Plant live 3 times and also got to shake his hand (in a Camden pizza restaurant oddly enough – a strange place to encounter a rock god!)