The heavy stereo thing in 1977, is what I also remember at the Oakland 7-23-77 show. I agree drum solo’s can be a bit too much sometimes, but I personally loved hearing John Bonham’s drum solo. Like listening to Classical music, I was mesmerized by each note played on the drums. I never saw anyone hit the drum set harder than how John played. He had been a construction worker at one time, as I understand it.
I don’t recall anything Quad or surround about Led Zeppelin, except for a special showing back when for their movie TSRTS. It was shown in a modern Cinerama Dome theater, with a super large, curved screen. For this showing only, which stayed at the theater for about 4-5 months, 4 huge and loud speakers were attached to the roof, in typical Quad fashion, with stereo speakers behind the screen. I saw the movie 3 times over the months and sat in different sections of the theater. I could be wrong, but I can only conclude that it was a 70mm print, with a six channel mix, stereo in the front, and Quad effects and music flying through the Quad roof speakers. It was a very aggressive mix, that fit the music perfectly. There was always music going through all the speakers. It made you feel like you were actually there, seeing them live. There was a lot of crazy panning in the Quad speakers at times. I believe they recreated that experience decent enough, when it was remixed for 5.1 Blu-ray in late 2000’s. The Blu-ray mix seemed a little bit more tame, than how I experienced it at that theater in 1976.
The movie theater could hold about 950 people at one time. At one showing I saw, there was so much pot smoking by hundreds of teenagers like myself, that a thick blanket of smoke hung in the air. The smoke was so intense, just breathing got you into a mood. This theater also specialized in sensurround sound showings of movies like “Earthquake” and “Midway.”