Back in the dark ages of the `70s and `80s, live rock n' roll on radio or television was a rarity. Yeah, we had MTV, but they mostly showed videos. Even when MTV showed a band supposedly performing live it was often lip-synced, and it was usually someone like Cyndi Lauper that you weren't interested in. I would hear about fabled shows like Van Halen playing the 1983 Us Festival on Showtime, but we only had basic cable and alas, I was hearing about it well after the event was over, and no one had a videotape.

And then came me and my friends' obsession with Led Zeppelin. Reading their biography, Hammer of the Gods, there was frequent mention of the band's conflicts with bootleggers who brought microphones at the end of broomsticks into the concerts. I had heard of bootlegs before, but where the heck did you buy this stuff? I sure didn't see any at the Record Bar or Camelot Music at the mall. Must've been something that only existed in the `70's, I reasoned.

"When the student is ready the teacher will appear," goes the saying. Our singer met someone who had a tape of Zep's `73 show at the Kezar stadium in San Francisco. This was like gold to us. Then we got to college and made the acquaintance of an acid casualty who had once dated a woman who's husband (ahem) had Led Zeppelin bootlegs, and he had taped them! And we taped them from him! This is how I got my first, and best, copy of the legendary Blueberry Hill bootleg. The singer of our band rolled the garage door open one afternoon holding another tape from this acquaintance, his eyes as big as saucers, not because he had also become an acid casualty but because of what was on the tape. "This...is priceless," he said. It contained Zeppelin writing and rehearsing "Black Dog" and "Stairway to Heaven"!

This tiny pile of boots wouldn't do any longer. Our singer announced we were going to pile into Scott's Daytona and ride around Atlanta until we found a record store with a stash of bootlegs. Our first couple of stops came up dry, but in Buckhead we struck the motherlode!

A shop there had a table covered in bootlegs from anyone you could name, most importantly Led Zeppelin. We heard a sample of one called Don't Mess with Texas and put that on the buy list along with another, Fillmore East/West. The prices were steep: $25 for one and $52 for a 2-CD set. We pooled our cash and giddily went to the register. There the cashier related an amazing story.

The last time Robert Plant was in town, he said, it had been another dull day at the record store when the Golden God himself walked through the door! Plant had strode right back to the Zeppelin stash and began holding bootlegs aloft with a laugh, wondering aloud how some of these tapes had ever gotten around. He then selected a stack of blues LP's and spent two hours at the turntable spinning records and talking music. One-by-one every employee at the pasta restaurant next door took their break to come over and get Plant's autograph, and he cheerfully signed every one.

Later I attended a record convention. The environment was intoxicating and my bootleg collection took a step up -- VIDEO! I found a Led Zeppelin compilation plus the Knebworth `79 concert. I found a payphone and called my pals, telling them it was time to pool resources again. The VHS tapes looked awful, you had to REALLY want to see this stuff to tolerate it, and we did. (Now all the stuff from those tapes and more is on the officially-released 2003 DVD.)

Then...Al Gore invented the Internet. Scott introduced me to online tape trading and I got a stack of Van Halen concerts by mail right away. Then came Bit Torrent technology, and the lid was officially off Pandora's box. Now I've got about 45 Led Zeppelin concerts on CD, over a dozen each of Van Halen and The Who, and a potpourri from lots of other people.

Unlike the past, these days Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend are fans of bootlegs, too. Photos circulate around the Web of Jimmy Page picking up Zeppelin and T. Rex bootlegs at a shop in Japan, and Pete Townshend has given his blessing to a site called LongLiveRock.org that specializes in Who boots.

Most recently I've acquired DVDs of The Who at Woodstock, The Who's 1970 show at Tanglewood Music Shed, and as of this writing I'm downloading Led Zeppelin's May 24, 1975 show at Earl's Court. If your Internet connection is slow, it might be my fault.