Will Jimmy Page recognize the DVD format's potential?

This news originally appeared in an edition of the newsletter "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

Concerts like the one 31 years ago today, during Led Zeppelin's "Return To The Clubs" U.K. tour, may have been officially recorded. Jimmy Page has mentioned throughout the years that his vault of live Led Zeppelin recordings includes a number of professionally recorded concerts from the era. He frequently mentioned an amazing gig captured at Southampton University, the 31st anniversary of which passed one week ago today.

These tapes, Page repeated again and again over the years, could be released someday on a Led Zeppelin live box set. Although no official chronological live compilation has ever emerged from Page, he's never forgotten his words. In early 2000, he would state that he would hate to spend a lot of time working on such a set, only to have it vetoed by another former member of Led Zeppelin.

However, there's still hope that there will be some sort of a chronological live compilation. The DVD format opens up new possibilities for this, which I'm sure Page has explored at great lengths. There was talk in December 2001 of such a set being released in spring 2002. John Paul Jones told me on Dec. 10, "I can't imagine it will be out by the spring -- not the way we make decisions, anyway!" He turned out to be correct.