I don't dig any of their live albums. I think the guitar sounds are kind of weedy. I love all the studio albums though {except CODA}.
Agreed, Page tends (or tended, as nowadays he seems to have a pretty massive tone) to sound thin and tinny, but their show at
the Royal Albert Hall in 1970 sounds great. That's usually the kind of sound I'm going for. Lost of fuzzy overdrive going on. I try to get the sound of that show on ANY instrument, really.
Anyway, on the original topic. Going that low is surely about looks for the largest part. Most guitar players can play just as well sitting down with their guitar on the lap. Myself, I'm tall, and I have excessively long limbs and fingers. For me it's actually really comfortable to stand with the guitar so low as to nearly fully stretch my right arm, especially playing heavy metal stuff with a lot of downpicking (I can hardly play Master of Puppets when seated, without at least an hour of intensive playing before). So anatomy does play a huge part.
As for sloppiness, as some have said, these guys just truly didn't give a shit about technique. I've been playing like that since I started (a little over three years), focusing on feeling more than anything. I kind of have that covered now though, and I feel it's time for me to really hone my skills. For a few weeks now I've been really practicing a lot of faster stuff, learning to be patient and play difficult licks painfully slowly, and speeding up. It's actually paying off, and I'm learning that really, if you give a shit at all, there's no excuse to not practice playing accurately. With a background of improvising pretty much everything and idolising Page for a while, it's safe to meticulously practice everything. I have safety net of music to fall back on if technique ever poses a problem.
(This post is altogether too long, and more of a rant. Sorry.

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