Ten Years Gone - Live Performances

Live Performances

Live versions of this song were performed on Led Zeppelin's 1977 concert tour of the United States. John Paul Jones originally played the melody on an acoustic guitar but then introduced an unusual triple-necked guitar that included a six-string, twelve string, mandolin, and bass pedals. Jimmy Page used his brown-painted 1953 Fender Telecaster, also known as 'Botswana Brown', featuring a Parsons and White B-string bender, where it originally had a maple neck with pearl dot inlays but in 1979 he salvaged the rosewood neck with clay dot inlays from his 1959 Fender Dragon Telecaster and he used it from then and on. The band again played the song on the first date of the concerts at Knebworth on 4 August 1979 which was also their last time playing it in concert. They cut it from their set on their second and final Knebworth appearance on 11 August, due to problems with the sound system.

Page and Plant performed this song once on their Japanese tour at Osaka on February 15, 1996. Page also performed this song on his tour with The Black Crowes in 1999. In an interview he later gave to National Public Radio, Page commented on this collaboration with the Black Crowes:

We did "Ten Years Gone" and all of a sudden I heard all of the guitar parts that I had never heard apart from on record. We could never do all those guitar parts with just the one guitar with Led Zeppelin. It was fantastic.

A version of "Ten Years Gone" performed by Page and The Black Crowes can be found on the album Live at the Greek. Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked on the song's structure, "A deep, reflective piece with hypnotic, interweaving riffs. Light and dark, shadow and glare. It sounds like nature coming through the speakers."