Laserlight's 2001 release With the Yardbirds & Jimmy Page, is another reissue that pairs early live Yardbirds recordings with the 1965 jam session credited to the Immediate All Stars (featuring Clapton, Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, Ian Stuart, and Mick Jagger).
For all of the acclaim it received, there's no denying that No Quarter was a tentative reunion for Page & Plant, containing only a handful of new songs that were scattered among many reworked old favorites. Since its supporting tour went well, the duo decided to make their reunion permanent, setting to work on an album of entirely new material. Taking the world music dabblings of No Quarter as a cue, Page & Plant tempered their eclecticism with a healthy dose of their monolithic guitar army, hiring Steve Albini, the indie rock producer notorious for his harsh, brutal recordings, to helm the boards. In other words, it sounds perfect on paper - groundbreaking veteran artists still taking chances and working with younger collaborators who would challenge them…