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Sentimental Value and Zep Performances


Xolo1974

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Hopefully this isn't a run of the mill topic. Does anyone have any particular performances and/or songs that have sentimental value and/or evoke powerful emotions....even if the performances may be terrible? Let me give you two examples for me. First off, STH at Live Aid. Terrible performance. Anyway, as a 10 year old kid in England, i vividly remember how excited my Dad was when they took to the stage. I remember being completely transfixed by the lyrics of the song and the mystique of the band....the type of guitar (the double neck), the state the guitarist was in, the way he could play, the atmosphere, the adulation of the crowd....the sound the guitar made. It was then that i was no longer interested in pop music.

I have just listened to this song and the hairs on my arms are stood on end. Very very strong powerful emotions, even 31 years on. A response that i really can't understand

The second for me is the first time i heard 'Ten Years Gone'. I was probably about 12. I used to play Physical Graffiti on my walkman last thing at night before i went to sleep. The lyrics absolutely below me away, and still do. The bridge section in particular. Will always be my favourite Zep song. How laughable that some people still think they are just 'heavy metal/rock'. 

Probably showing too much of my emotions in this post. But what the heck, we're all friends right? I thought some of you folks might have these sort of feelings when you listen to a particular bootleg for example. I'm interested to hear. 

  

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In my heart there will always be a place for my first bootlegs, ie; Vancouver 3/21/70, Dallas, Texas 3/4/75, Texas Int'l. Pop Festival 8/31/69, Mobile, Alabama 5/13/73 - "Mr. Cole, can you take your dress off and get these lights turned down, please?"

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29 minutes ago, Amstel said:

In my heart there will always be a place for my first bootlegs, ie; Vancouver 3/21/70, Dallas, Texas 3/4/75, Texas Int'l. Pop Festival 8/31/69, Mobile, Alabama 5/13/73 - "Mr. Cole, can you take your dress off and get these lights turned down, please?"

I don't know whether it's just the version of the Vancouver bootleg that I have. It's a great show, but the guitar is so low in the mix 

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14 minutes ago, Xolo1974 said:

I don't know whether it's just the version of the Vancouver bootleg that I have. It's a great show, but the guitar is so low in the mix 

It has to be the version you have.  I have the original "Mudslide" release.  The guitar is heavy in that mix, but the bass is low.

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Hearing (and recording) radio shows for the first time of Led Zeppelin, The Firm, Robert Plant, Coverdale Page, Page Plant, etc. 

 

Traveling Riverside Blues coming over the airwaves in the 80's for the first time was a trip to hear newly unearthed Zeppelin make no mistake!

 

The first radio airplay of The Firm live at the Hammersmith Odeon, particularly when Make or Break and Cadillac came on (and that joint too!) was powerfully mind-blowing!

 

Even listening to the world premiere broadcast of Coverdale Page the day before it was released was so sensational and powerful!

 

Hearing many Robert Plants radio shows for the first time as well I hold invaluable, strong memories of.

 

Hearing Page and Plant live at the Shark Tank from Westwood One on the radio for the first time was incredible too!

 

And many bootlegs too.

 

I could go on with bootlegs and studio recordings for a while of course but radio shows in particular I'll say have very strong memories for me!

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How about this for "Sentimental Value".  The very last song Led Zeppelin played in front of a live audience on July 7, 1980 in Berlin, Germany:

 

Edited to Add:  This is a great performance of "Whole Lotta Love".  On reflection, it makes Me kind of sad that this was the very last time that Led Zeppelin ever performed in front of a paying audience.  Even though this was in West Berlin, Germany, I am glad to know that there were a lot of American Servicemen in the audience, many who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin as kids. 

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2 things....

First, finding this forum, and following that getting into bootlegs - which until a year or so ago I thought all sounded like they were recorded underwater with a potatoe as I'd only heard 3 or so 3 decades ago on a cassette and that's what those ones sounded like. I now have almost every show. Multiples of some shows, and probably more than I'll ever get to hear (but I'll do my best!)

2nd, "but I know, that I love you so" from The Rain Song. When I'm in my car singing along getting right into it, that one line I cannot sing as I choke up and well with tears.

Always have, always will. Not even sure why, but the delivery, I think is so pure and honest. Pure emotion. Pure love.

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Because they were the first bootlegs I got, the "Live On Blueberry Hill" (9.4.70 L.A.) and "Going to California" (9.14.71 Berkeley) shows always get to me.

Because it was my first, the June 25 1972 always has a special place in my heart.

Because it was my last, ditto June 27, 1977.

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1 hour ago, rm2551 said:

2 things....

First, finding this forum, and following that getting into bootlegs - which until a year or so ago I thought all sounded like they were recorded underwater with a potatoe as I'd only heard 3 or so 3 decades ago on a cassette and that's what those ones sounded like. I now have almost every show. Multiples of some shows, and probably more than I'll ever get to hear (but I'll do my best!)

2nd, "but I know, that I love you so" from The Rain Song. When I'm in my car singing along getting right into it, that one line I cannot sing as I choke up and well with tears.

Always have, always will. Not even sure why, but the delivery, I think is so pure and honest. Pure emotion. Pure love.

Brilliant post buddy

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On 22/10/2016 at 5:09 PM, Strider said:

Because they were the first bootlegs I got, the "Live On Blueberry Hill" (9.4.70 L.A.) and "Going to California" (9.14.71 Berkeley) shows always get to me.

Because it was my first, the June 25 1972 always has a special place in my heart.

Because it was my last, ditto June 27, 1977.

Very jealous :)

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On 22/10/2016 at 5:09 PM, Strider said:

Because they were the first bootlegs I got, the "Live On Blueberry Hill" (9.4.70 L.A.) and "Going to California" (9.14.71 Berkeley) shows always get to me.

Because it was my first, the June 25 1972 always has a special place in my heart.

Because it was my last, ditto June 27, 1977.

So you saw the monster acoustic set in 1977. Which was the better show, 72 or 77? 

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19 hours ago, Xolo1974 said:

So you saw the monster acoustic set in 1977. Which was the better show, 72 or 77? 

Apples and oranges. It's like picking a favourite chocolate...they are all good!

1972 was Led Zeppelin as relatively young and still hungry kids...really just beginning to ascend to superstar status on par with the Stones. Although the Stones tour that same month in June 1972 got 10 times more ink and coverage than the Zeppelin tour.

1972 was powerful renditions of all the early classics: Dazed & Confused, Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, SIBLY, What Is and What Should Never Be, Bring It On Home. It was Stairway and the Led Zep IV songs when it was still fresh, and a beautiful acoustic set. It was some new songs we had never heard before (Over the Hills..., The Ocean). It was encore after encore after encore...my first concert seeing a band play and play and play until they were spent. Most important, it was the band still at its peak, health-wise and playing-wise. Before the drugs and alcohol and Robert's throat surgery and flu...they were a well-oiled machine in 1972 crushing everything in its path.

1977 was the return of the mega-gods of rock. The difference in their stature between 1972 and 1977 was immense. 1977 was the hammer of the gods with just enough frailty to make them seem human after all. It was the tour for all the later epics: No Quarter, Over the Hills..., Ten Years Gone, Trampled Under Foot, The Song Remains the Same, IMTOD, Nobody's Fault But Mine, Achilles Last Stand, and the crushing blow of Kashmir! It was the long-awaited return of the acoustic set. It was a stage show at its visual design peak...oh that laser pyramid!

Honestly, to decide between the two years is so hard...each year has something memorable about it. Because 1972 was the first, I tend to accord it #1 status out of sentimental reasons...you never forget your first.

But goddamn, 1977 had so many monstrous moments...Jimmy's staggering solos in "Over the Hills" and "No Quarter", the thrill of hearing "Ten Years Gone" and "Achilles Last Stand" for the first time...just their raw, savage power and swagger was overwhelming. The first few concerts I saw that week were perhaps a bit fresher and more consistent overall, so with the benefit of hindsight, individually I might rank the June 21 and 23 shows higher. But there were enough pleasant quirks and surprises on nights June 26 and 27, that the whole week of shows is just one giant long warm memory buzz in my mind.

Basically, 1972 and 1977 are both #1...call them 1A and 1B. I wouldn't trade anything in the world for them...not even a billion dollars.

And that's not meant to imply that 1973 and 1975 weren't also meaningful.

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Years ago I had a bootleg with a performance of "As long as I have you, I have no idea which show specifically,  but it had to have been 68-69, probably the Fillmore West or Tea Party in Boston from what I have heard on Youtube. It also had a killer Dazed and Comm-breakdown. I remember buying it at some long-gone basement shop on Newbury Street in Boston, back when Newbury Street was a cool place to skip out of high school for the day, and before it became a place for millionaires. Damn tape was $18; busted my 16 year old wallet for the rest of the day! That bootleg solidified my love of Zeppelin; I had just started playing Guitar and had a heavy ass Peavy T-60 and a horribly crackly Crate Amp. I learned that live version of ALAIHY as best as I could over the next two years, and still love to tear that riff up today.  I remember I had to flip the cassette in the middle of a solo section, and it quickly disappeared once I moved into the dorms in College....anyways I have heard lots of great live stuff from then until today, but my inexperience with live Zep at the time is what made that song so special for me.  Well, and the fact that there was no real internet yet; strange tapes with poorly legible hand written labels purchased from poorly socialized people in dank basements were the only window into the true greatness of Live Zep; doubled the mystique of this band for sure.  Oh yeah, and then there is also Achilles live from Knebworth on the DVD, and the Page and Plant version of Babe i'm Gonna Leave You with the extended solo in the middle I saw at Mansfield in 98'....so many fantastic memories with this band!

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