Zeppelin fans are going to go three ways on "Jimmy Page [ tickets ] and the Black Crowes Live at the Greek": those who want anything that smoking Jimmy lays his axe to; those who heard that these two October 1999 shows were the best thing in rock since medical marijuana and want to hear what it was all about, finally; and that little group of naysayers who just might be onto something when they say, "Why not just listen to the original Zeppelin albums?"

The straight-up truth is that it's all a matter of opinion on this collection of 18 tunes (19--if you count the "Out on the Tiles/Whole Lotta Love" medley as two), which you can either download from musicmaker.com for $12 (real fun over an analog modem) or buy as a two-disc set for $17.90.

Track by track, there's plenty of screaming soloing by Page, who blasts out his devil-take-the-hindmost blues on "Woke Up This Morning," works the slide soulfully on the rocking "In My Time of Dying," and cuts himself a nice slice of the wah-wah pie on "Ten Years Gone," one of the more interesting Zeppelin tunes that the Crowes homed in on. Crowes vocalist Chris Robinson holds his own on the front line, though he doesn't have Plant's range and his intonation is up and down. (Not that they were testing his pipes against a tuning fork--this was a rock gig.) And the all-important bass and drums locked in on the heavy grooves in tunes like "Heartbreaker" and ''Custard Pie''-- you can tell that the band was getting its kicks and the fans were too.

The main deal is the old rock 'n' roll problem: the album doesn't feel the way it did live. There's not much of a way around it. The audio discs are all we have left to remember it, so how are you to know when Robinson was strutting and gesticulating, and how would you know when Page was going to skydive out of the burning plane without a parachute? And while you might not have cared at the live show if the band got a bit messy on those tricky double-time parts, it stands out on the recording.

But that's for the curmudgeon who's listened to all the Zeppelin albums a million times and is drinking bitters. It's not as if Page and Plant have lately been producing (add "good music" as an optional phrase), and some people haven't gotten hip to what John Paul Jones is all about on his solo tour. So that leaves the fans who want something, anything, and this album of Zeppelin songs in the traditional style throws everybody a giant, meaty bone.