9/29/1971 soundboard. Can't stop listening to this show. Still working on the remaster:

I'm really looking forward to this book. I know Mike Tremaglio, Dave's co-author, personally. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we met over a box of Zep bootlegs at a record convention about 20 years ago. At the time I thought I knew a lot about the band, but Mike's level of knowledge was encyclopedic, and it's grown by leaps and bounds since then with the endless research he's done into their career. I ordered my copy a couple of days ago through a third party seller on Amazon. It was around $45 total, including shipping within the US. I'm still waiting for it to arrive. The book is a hardcover and has around 550 pages, so I'm not surprised it is expensive to ship it from England to the States, but you should be able to get a copy for much less from the US version of Amazon. For those who are interested, here is a link to Dave's site with some more info about the book: http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/tbl-news/evenings-with-led-zeppelin-feedback-lz-news-tbl-archive-led-zeppelin-iii-and-lyceum-1969-coda-london-gig-national-album-day-danny-baker-dl-diary-blog-update/

My remaster of June 7, 1977. Listen to Bonzo starting at the 6:40 mark. Killer stuff.

Interesting that the band does not consider Sept 7, 1968 to be their beginning.

And continuing on a blues theme, the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio live at KEXP. My favorite comment about this on YouTube is "I wish my wife looked at me the same way that drummer looks at the organist..." No doubt if he could play keyboards as well as Delvon, she would

Gary Clark, Jr. "When My Train Pulls In". The solo in the second half of this song just kills.

One of my favorite things to do is read reminiscences of Zep concerts by people who attended them. One in particular sticks out. The person saw one of the '77 shows. He said the transition from the end of Jimmy's solo to the beginning of Achilles was the most stunning thing he ever saw in the 100 or so concerts he attended. This version from 5/22/77 made me think of how great it must have been to see that; the laser pyramid spinning around Jimmy in his dragon suit, him playing some seemingly random notes, "what song is this?", and then the blinding white lights as they launch into Achilles. Man, how I wish I got to see them live.

I don't know if it's the worst one ever, but the version of IMTOD from May 22, 1977 is very strange. About 30 seconds in, they just stop playing. I don't recall them ever doing that before. Robert blames "clouds on the stage". About 20 seconds later they start up again and everything goes well until just after Robert's "My Jesus" solo. As the band returns, Jimmy completely loses his way. It sounds like he's a teenager at a jam session whose never heard the song before and he's trying to play it while someone calls out the chords to him. Very, very weird. He continues on that way for about 30 seconds, then gets back in the groove and they finish up without further incident. I'd love to have a video of this show to see what caused the problems, particularly the stop at the beginning. Abandoning a performance mid-song is pretty much the cardinal sin of live music. And they all cease playing at the same time, so one of them must have given the "we're not gonna make it" sign. It didn't sound like a broken string or anything technical, so I can't imagine what made them decide to stop.

Here's a sample of the North_Bridge remaster of May 21, 1977. If you want the full show in lossless quality, send me a message.

SIBLY from Seattle sounds pretty good to me (aside from a little too much bass on the remaster.)

The Overture: The Campaign:

Agreed, it's a killer song. Zep and Sabbath should have figured out a way to release it officially.

Wax Audio's "Whole Lotta Sabbath".

I got to see Maiden open for Priest a couple of times in the early '80s. I prefer Priest, but still love Di'Anno era Maiden.

"Mountain Path" by Badmarsh and Shri. One of my top ten favorite songs.

I just had one of my most enjoyable Zep moments in recent memory listening to St. Tristan's Sword cranked up loud. I also listened to a bunch of the instrumental songs on the various discs, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I generally prefer instrumental music to songs with vocals (nothing against Robert, I just like instruments better than vocals), so they were definitely worth the price of admission for me and I'm glad I got to hear them.

Agreed. This is how the first release of HTWWW should have sounded. I still can't believe Jimmy OK'd the brickwalled mess that was the original version. Why go to all the trouble of picking the best performances from the two nights only to have them lose their impact because of the poor mastering?

A related release from 1972 that's worth a listen is Lucifer's Friend's self titled first album. John Lawton, the singer here, sang with Uriah Heep starting in '77. And if you like this album, check out the band Electric Food, which is basically Lucifer's Friend with a different singer. Silly name, really good band.

Irish Tour '74 is the place to start if you're new to Rory Gallgher. Luckily, there's also a bunch of audios and videos of him from other eras too, including this smoking version of Moonchild from 1980. Man, I love this guy's playing.

They may not have been the first to write a power ballad, but they certainly made it popular. I still can't listen to High Infidelity. It's been 38 years (wow, that went quick) and I'm still sick of it from hearing it so much back then and I didn't even own it. You just couldn't escape it. I even gave up listening to their earlier stuff because of that album. Too bad, because there was some good stuff on those albums. In particular, Gary Richrath's (R.I.P.) lead guitar playing. He didn't seem to get much credit for how good of a guitar player he was. Here's an example:

"Back On The Road Again" from REO Speedwagon. A good hard rock song from a band whose enjoyable early works were overshadowed by High Infidelity. If you didn't live through it, it's hard to appreciate how big High Infidelity was. It seemed like you couldn't have the radio on in the U.S. for more than a few minutes in the early '80s without something from that album being played.

""Volcanic Rock", the appropriately named early seventies album by Aussie hard rockers Buffalo.

...

BootLedZ is the one I normally go by: http://www.bootledz.com/sbfile.htm

The band is Ranmadou, the song is "100 Faces". Japanese hard rock from 1971. I can't understand the lyrics at all, but the loud distorted guitar I get perfectly.