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I used to think '77 was overrated...


William Austin

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Like seeing '77 feeling some love!  I knew there was a group on here who
didn't mind some of the gigs from that year. :drinks:

Wait.. why is the thread called overrated? '77 always seemed to be underrated.
Oh well not important. I get what William Austin is saying anyhow in his first post.

 

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1 hour ago, ArmsofAtlas1977 said:

I've listened a lot of 77 and this is what the setlist should have been:

  1. Sick Again
  2. Nobody's Fault But Mine
  3. In My Time of Dying
  4. Since I've Been Loving You
  5. No Quarter
  6. Ten Years Gone
  7. White Summer/Black Mountain Side
  8. Kashmir
  9. Achille's Last Stand

Listen to the shows like that and there's your 90 minutes!

I would add either a balls out, kiss my ass Communication Breakdown or Immigrant Song as the final encore ala the version they pulled off at Knebworth for a perfect show closer. I am talking a real punk rock / grungy version of either song...quick, insane, and not giving a single fuck. Then, Robert says, "Goodnight (insert city here), its been a blast...we OUT!!!" Robert pulls a mike drop and the Zep are gone!

They would have been 20 year ahead of their time and the crowd would have shit.

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Since some have asked, I'll clarify why I said "overrated", and it's a long story so I'll try to simplify it...

-I've been a fan of Zep for about 3 years.

-I was a lurker here long before joining.

-Early on in my Zep fandom, I always considered I-IV to be the greatest albums they made, and everything that came after to not be as good, particularly Presence and ITTOD.

-Although I now love all the albums (almost) equally, I still consider Robert's voice on I-IV to be the greatest voice in Hard Rock.

-I had heard all about the dark side of 1977 before I first visited this forum, and viewing a lot of Seattle clips on Youtube didn't help the cause. I didn't know at the time that Seattle was almost as bad as it got.

-Upon first visits to this forum, I was a bit shocked to see that many opinions about Zep's career were the exact opposite of mine, and it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth for some reason. It's almost like I had turned sour towards Zep's later career because all the time I had been a fan, it felt like a slap in the face to know that in favoring the high-pitched Robert/sober Jimmy/Telecaster/Organ/Bearded/Waffle-less/20-minute Dazed/Four Symbols on stage Zeppelin... I was a minority. It sounds ridiculous even to me now, but that's how I felt.

-While we're on the subject, when I first visited this forum, I remember finding it humorous going through years worth of threads and finding so many that wanked-off to Physical Graffiti. I love the album, don't get me wrong, but it was almost like... "Who's your favorite band member?" "PHYSICAL GRAFFITI!!!!!!"

 

So in a nutshell, I basically used to think that '77 was overrated because I (like many) was mis-informed about it, and I'm not ashamed to eat my words.

 

As an aside, I do still think that 1975 is a bit overrated, but that's not because I haven't listened to any good shows. It's mainly because, while I don't mind a little waffle here and there, they overcooked the waffle in 1975. When there's 14 or 15 song in the set and three of them (Dazed, No Quarter, Moby Dick) take up half the show, no thank you. 1977 was a better mixture of using the waffle where it was needed and as such, more songs in the set.

Another thing is that no matter how good the rest of the band is, the condition of Robert's voice is what makes or breaks a show for me, and his voice was not that great for most of '75. By the time his voice got better, the waffle had only gotten bigger. Even the 1971 BBC show is hard for me to listen to because of Robert's voice.

But that's just my opinion. There are some elements of the 1975 shows that I like very much, namely Trampled Under Foot. The performance on the LZ DVD is SMOKIN'!

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10 hours ago, ArmsofAtlas1977 said:

I've listened a lot of 77 and this is what the setlist should have been:

  1. Sick Again
  2. Nobody's Fault But Mine
  3. In My Time of Dying
  4. Since I've Been Loving You
  5. No Quarter
  6. Ten Years Gone
  7. White Summer/Black Mountain Side
  8. Kashmir
  9. Achille's Last Stand

Listen to the shows like that and there's your 90 minutes!

I'll fix that for you:

1. Royal Orleans

2. Candy Store Rock

3. Achilles Last Stand

4. Tea For One

5. Hey, Hey What Can I Do

6. The Crunge

7. Dancing Days

8. Custard Pie

9. The Song Remains The Same

Encore

10. No Quarter

11. Kashmir

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^ Hell nah man leave the bloat and excess of the 3+ hour show imo :D. The drum and noise solos would have been better off replaced with more songs though. I always thought a cool idea would have been for Jimmy to play a 5 min max bow solo that lead into 'In The Light', just imagine the dry ice swirling and dark lighting while the intro drone to In The Light sounded off; fuck that would have been epic.

Many of you know that '77 is my favourite tour and the bad rep it gets really isn't deserved imo. A lot of people seem to listen to/watch Seattle and read about Tempe and just assume the whole of the tour was like that. There are more good shows than bad ones and even shows like Seattle have their moments (read No Quarter, Stairway solo). I don't think any other band can lay claim to how good and conisstent they were in NYC and LA in 1977. Now as many others have speculated, why the hell weren't any of these shows professionally recorded? You think Pontiac would have been professionally recorded as a historical statement alone, even if it was just for the band members themselves. My speculation is that by this point Peter Grant and Page were just in too much of a state to think about it. Might be an unpopular opinion here but Grant was simply too strung out at this point, I think they should have maybe considered a replacement manager.

Page surely has (non multi-track) soundboards from '77 though, as evidenced by the fragment of 23/06/77 that is out there. I know they will never be cleaned up and released at least in his lifetime because of his seeming paranoia about anyone hearing anything with a bum note or two. Take a leaf out of the Stones book Jimmy! If they can release a a coke laden show from the Forum in '75 with Richards out of it and missing all of his cues in Happy then 21/6/77, 11/6/77, 23/6/77 etc can be released!

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9 hours ago, tom kid said:

^ Hell nah man leave the bloat and excess of the 3+ hour show imo :D. The drum and noise solos would have been better off replaced with more songs though. I always thought a cool idea would have been for Jimmy to play a 5 min max bow solo that lead into 'In The Light', just imagine the dry ice swirling and dark lighting while the intro drone to In The Light sounded off; fuck that would have been epic.

Many of you know that '77 is my favourite tour and the bad rep it gets really isn't deserved imo. A lot of people seem to listen to/watch Seattle and read about Tempe and just assume the whole of the tour was like that. There are more good shows than bad ones and even shows like Seattle have their moments (read No Quarter, Stairway solo). I don't think any other band can lay claim to how good and conisstent they were in NYC and LA in 1977. Now as many others have speculated, why the hell weren't any of these shows professionally recorded? You think Pontiac would have been professionally recorded as a historical statement alone, even if it was just for the band members themselves. My speculation is that by this point Peter Grant and Page were just in too much of a state to think about it. Might be an unpopular opinion here but Grant was simply too strung out at this point, I think they should have maybe considered a replacement manager.

Page surely has (non multi-track) soundboards from '77 though, as evidenced by the fragment of 23/06/77 that is out there. I know they will never be cleaned up and released at least in his lifetime because of his seeming paranoia about anyone hearing anything with a bum note or two. Take a leaf out of the Stones book Jimmy! If they can release a a coke laden show from the Forum in '75 with Richards out of it and missing all of his cues in Happy then 21/6/77, 11/6/77, 23/6/77 etc can be released!

It really is a miracle the 77' tour did not grind to a halt in Chicago. Between Jimmy's "food poisoning" and the entire management & most of the production staff completely in the arms of addiction, how this tour made it to Oakland was almost divine intervention. I have never heard of a similar situation either before or after for a major touring band. Even Motley Crue, though in similar circumstance with addiction, still had sober management & handlers on tour.

For all the cards (and then some) stacked against them in 77', this tour is goddamned brilliant when one considers what statistically should have happened long before the end of the first leg. I always wondered if Steve Weiss or one of his assistants were running things in the shadows during this tour, it really is a mystery.

Such adversity, so much to overcome, yet many of those 77' shows were quite brilliant.

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1 hour ago, IpMan said:

I always wondered if Steve Weiss or one of his assistants were running things in the shadows during this tour, it really is a mystery.

Peter Grant never missed a gig (in '77) so I don't know why you would think he was ever so incapacitated he couldn't function.  Of course, the Tampa fiasco is a great example that his attention to detail was in decline  (with "rain or shine" printed on the tickets).  

 

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19 hours ago, SteveAJones said:

I'll fix that for you:

1. Royal Orleans

2. Candy Store Rock

3. Achilles Last Stand

4. Tea For One

5. Hey, Hey What Can I Do

6. The Crunge

7. Dancing Days

8. Custard Pie

9. The Song Remains The Same

Encore

10. No Quarter

11. Kashmir

No Ten Years Gone Steve?!?  Such a staple in '77 and usually they did pretty decent on it.

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Ugh in 1977 two people I wish were not on that tour are Bindon and Cole. 
Actually John Bindon should have never been employed by L Z to start with.
And Cole should have been fired before 1977.  He was an enabler to a lot of
shit.  Peter Grant though I think he had a lot of 'important' people in his back pocket
- which helped the band perhaps.  I think Peter was smarter than he's given credit for.

 

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1 hour ago, KellyGirl said:

No Ten Years Gone Steve?!?  Such a staple in '77 and usually they did pretty decent on it.

Agreed, but with the benefit of hindsight the shows were self-indulgent and some of those songs were even a bit depressing. It's all a bit too Quaalude shuffle for me. So I thought we'd put together a more upbeat setlist, with Tea For One being the obligatory delving into the blues. Close the show with two epics that wring every last bit of kinetic energy from the audience.   

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8 hours ago, KellyGirl said:

Ugh in 1977 two people I wish were not on that tour are Bindon and Cole. 
Actually John Bindon should have never been employed by L Z to start with.
And Cole should have been fired before 1977.  He was an enabler to a lot of
shit.  Peter Grant though I think he had a lot of 'important' people in his back pocket
- which helped the band perhaps.  I think Peter was smarter than he's given credit for.

 

You betcha Kelly, Bindon should have been in a jail cell or at the bottom of the Thames for his actions of the prior 10 years. The guy used to run with the Kray brothers for chrissakes! This is definitive proof that even though Grant was there in body, his brain had checked out in regard to any semblance of common sense. Grant was a damn genius in regard to management and how he changed the music business in general, however his addictions completely took over by 77' and he was a shadow of his former self in regard to management and, at the same time, pretty unhinged in behavior as evident in the Oakland incident. Cole is another one, not as bad by any means as Bindon but he did enable if not encourage much of the bad behavior and the procurement of drugs. They should have fired Cole as tour manager after 75' but it is all water under the bridge.

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13 hours ago, IpMan said:

For all the cards (and then some) stacked against them in 77', this tour is goddamned brilliant when one considers what statistically should have happened long before the end of the first leg. I always wondered if Steve Weiss or one of his assistants were running things in the shadows during this tour, it really is a mystery.

Such adversity, so much to overcome, yet many of those 77' shows were quite brilliant.

The first leg of the '77 tour (ending with the Pontiac show, if only that had been multi-tracked, it was certainly filmed) was easily the best leg of that particular jaunt, Jimmy was 'relatively' clean, and we don't know for a fact that it wasn't food poisoning he had, although how he got food poison when he wasn't even eating at that time is open to question.  According to Dave Lewis, who was at Heathrow Airport to see the band off on the second leg, Jimmy was the last to arrive, was unshaven, disheveled, and sweaty, I think it's fair to say this is when he fell off the proverbial wagon if not before that.  And then Keith Richards met up with them at the Madison Square Garden shows... and you can guess the rest.

There wasn't any real adversity to overcome, except their own excess... of course, that all changed on July 24th and 26th, and nothing would ever be the same again.

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45 minutes ago, The Old Hermit said:

The first leg of the '77 tour (ending with the Pontiac show, if only that had been multi-tracked, it was certainly filmed) was easily the best leg of that particular jaunt, Jimmy was 'relatively' clean, and we don't know for a fact that it wasn't food poisoning he had, although how he got food poison when he wasn't even eating at that time is open to question.  According to Dave Lewis, who was at Heathrow Airport to see the band off on the second leg, Jimmy was the last to arrive, was unshaven, disheveled, and sweaty, I think it's fair to say this is when he fell off the proverbial wagon if not before that.  And then Keith Richards met up with them at the Madison Square Garden shows... and you can guess the rest.

There wasn't any real adversity to overcome, except their own excess... of course, that all changed on July 24th and 26th, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Musically the second leg is the best, I think that's pretty objective tbh.

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I don't see Zeppelin ever playing Candy Store Rock and Royal Orleans.   I don't think people at that time really dug those songs and can't see them going over well with fans live in concert.

Same with Tea For One.  I like the song but can totally see fans being like WTF this is boring.  It seems much slower than SInce Ive Been Loving You, but can see crowd getting bored and wandering around

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2 hours ago, The Old Hermit said:

 

There wasn't any real adversity to overcome, except their own excess... of course, that all changed on July 24th and 26th, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Don't know about that, after all, with Grant & Cole as bad off as Jimmy, and Bindon running amok, who was flying the ship so to speak?

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I've got a random list I just made up.  Lot of good ignored songs

 

Good Times Bad Times

Ramble On

Nobody's Fault But Mine

For Your Life

Houses Of The Holy

Boogie With Stu

Hey Hey What Can I Say

Ten Years Gone

Four Sticks

---- Break

Trampled Under Foot

The Rover

Achille's Last Stand

White Summer / Kashmir

What Is And What Should Never Be

How Many More Times

 

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4 hours ago, tom kid said:

Musically the second leg is the best, I think that's pretty objective tbh.

Oops, you're absolutely right, I got my dates and legs completely mixed up... Houston, Los Angeles, New York, that's what I had in mind.  I cheerfully retract my previous statement.

Still though, you have to admit either leg was better than the trainwreck that was the abortive third and final leg... that's  where the '77 tour got it's bad reputation from, and by then, the wheels were coming off, alas...

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4 hours ago, TheGreatOne said:

I've got a random list I just made up.  Lot of good ignored songs

 

Good Times Bad Times

Ramble On

Nobody's Fault But Mine

For Your Life

Houses Of The Holy

Boogie With Stu

Hey Hey What Can I Say

Ten Years Gone

Four Sticks

---- Break

Trampled Under Foot

The Rover

Achille's Last Stand

White Summer / Kashmir

What Is And What Should Never Be

How Many More Times

 

Yeah some of these remind me that L Z had a number of songs that rarely or if ever saw the light
of day on a stage. A lot of stuff they recorded I wish the band could have or would have played live.
I guess that's why it's good to listen to both their live stuff as well as the studio. You miss out if you
only stick to one over the other.

You have them taking a break? Would that have gone over well? I only ask because L Z played some
pretty lengthy concerts. I can see fans getting restless after Plant says "Ladies if you're 'Badgeholder'
please follow the security man giving you the backstage pass. As for the rest you.. too bad! Sit tight!"

Meanwhile 30 minutes later..... In '77 you can only imagine the scene back stage with the shape the
band and its entourage were in. Ha!
I'd be worried Jimmy or Bonzo wouldn't make it back out to the
 stage. :lol: 

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haha, I don't know how they did not take a break.  It was a quick random list, the Break would be something like No Quarter and rest of band takes a break for 15min while Jones is playing type break.

Too many songs to think of while they band is promoting new album and the set includes Moby Dick, No Quarter and acoustic set.. and Kashmir is long too and the Guitar, noise solo

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Very good, but I am assuming NQ would half the usual length, also 

WS/ BMS played prepared/practiced otherwise much shorter. There is some

excellent NQ in 77', but sometimes Jones would mess with the chords and

Page was not able to follow cleanly. WMS/BMS  usually went on far too

long, and usually with too much disjointed sections

 

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Envisioning the song even in my head, that song certainly has most parts

which are ready for jamming. However as far as experimental stuff spun

off the main song parts, not sure if Page in 77' , just like some of

NQ in 77', Page had the concentration to properly catch Jones and Bonzo's

departures from let's say the "standard" jam patterns.

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