Saturday July 20 cont'd: From windy Point Judith Lighthouse, we moseyed north up the coast, past Scarborough Beach, where it was considerably less windy and more humid and the moon was beginning to rise... ...and on to Narragansett Beach, with its Castle Towers and Coast Guard House...and more of those Cairns along the shore and even on the sea wall. Naturally, I had to go back in the ocean...where I discovered the ocean shelf remains very shallow for a much greater distance than Southern California beaches. By the time you get 10 yards out in the ocean in California, you're already above your head in ocean depth. Whereas I could walk 30 yards or more and still touch the ocean bottom with my feet at Narragansett. Red sky at night, sailor's delight... We continued walking along the beach, past the parties and the beach cabanas, until it was dark and the only sound we could hear was the low roar of the waves breaking on the shore. Then we hit Brickley's Ice Cream in Wakefield for some creamy homemade ice cream. I had the chocolate peanut butter cup. She had the chocolate walnut.

^^^ That's what Tivo is for. I'm watching Kershaw and the Dodgers trying to maintain their road winning streak at St. Louis. I think the Dodgers are two wins from the record.

To Rick, and everyone I missed in June and July because of my trips, a Happy Belated Birthday to you all! Today, August 6, I would like to wish Al Wizard a Happy Birthday! Keep those concert photos coming, dude!

Saturday, July 20: Still somewhat tired from my cross-country trip and a late night Friday, I slept in Saturday until about 10:30 or so. It was sunny and warm...still very humid but not in the 100s like the previous day. A quick dip in the pool swimming some laps was just what I needed to cool off. Then I waited for my friend to pick me up and start our day. First, I had my first taste of Dunkin' Donuts coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts across from my hotel. Dunkin' Donuts used to be in Southern California when I was a kid, but for some reason they all closed down and left years ago...in the 80s, I believe. The word is they are coming back to L.A. in 2014. Good. Because the two main donut chains we have in Southern California suck: Winchell's and YumYum. Oh yeah, I forgot Krispy Kreme...they suck, too. For good donuts in LA, you gotta go to the Mom n Pop stands: Randy's Donuts in Inglewood, Stan's in Westwood, Bob's in the Fairfax Farmers Market, Lee's in Santa Monica, Alex's in Hollywood. For a chain, Dunkin' was pretty tasty coffee...and a good variety of donuts and muffins. Heading south on the 95, then the 4, we drove around the southern part of Rhode Island and all the villages...lots of beautiful stone walls and old churches and cemeteries. Most importantly, everywhere the smell of the sea and the salt air. I don't care how beautiful a place is; if it isn't near an ocean, I cannot live there. No matter where I was in Rhode Island, I was never far from the sea. After a nice supper at Mews Tavern in Wakefield(which I posted about in the Bon Appètit! thread, including a very tasty Revival Zeppelin beer), we drove down Old Point Judith Rd. to the Point Judith Lighthouse, situated on the southeastern-most tip of Rhode Island. http://www.uscg.mil/d1/stapointjudith/ Originally built in 1810, destroyed in the Hurricane of 1915, rebuilt in 1816, and finally the current tower was built in 1857. The last German U-boat was sunk two miles from Point Judith in WWII. I baptized myself in the Atlantic ocean. The scenery was gorgeous and there were all these mysterious cairns along the shore.

^^^ Thanks...I don't know what to say other than I do write for a living...I just don't get paid. Before continuing on with my time in New England, here is me at the "Cheers" bar the afternoon of Friday, July 19. Located at 84 Beacon St., across from the Public Garden, which is next to the Boston Commons. In other words, it's pretty easy to find and accessible to the public. It is crowded, though, even though there are several bars and rooms to choose from. After entering from the downstairs door(just like on the tv show), we ended upstairs at the Cheers replica bar. This was the bar made to look exactly like the bar on "Cheers". Though the tv show filmed the exterior here, the original bar downstairs doesn't match the set used on the tv show. I had a pint of the Samuel Adams Boston Brick Red, which is only brewed and sold in Boston. Since I have already posted about the Red Sox-Yankee game at Fenway Park, here and on the Baseball thread, this closes the book on Friday, July 19.

Basically...EVERYTHING! I've got a fever and the only cure is more live Led Zeppelin. But to narrow it down to specifics... * Any and all 1968-69 shows where "As Long As I Have You" was played in soundboard or audience tape. * All the Japanese shows from 1971 and 1972 in an official release or upgraded sources 'unofficially'. * The complete RAH 1.9.70 and complete HTWWW 6.25.72...maybe Jimmy can put these out in Super Deluxe Editions. * The complete 1973 MSG concerts box set. See above. * A soundboard or upgraded audience source for 3.12.75 Long Beach. * Soundboard for 1.20.75 Chicago and the Brussels 75 show where they performed "When the Levee Breaks". * Upgrades/soundboard for the 1971 Copenhagen shows. * Soundboard/video for Bath '70. * Soundboard/video for Pontiac '77. * Soundboards/upgrades for all 1971 shows * Soundboard/upgrade for 6.22.77 LA Forum * Anything (soundboard or audience tape in whatever quality) for any Led Zeppelin concert that hasn't been heard yet...like the missing 7 from 1977. I find your thinking on this backwards. Dazed and Confused and Moby Dick and Whole Lotta Love were all 25+ minutes on "How the West Was Won", sure, but it was Dazed and Confused and Moby Dick that were extended with endless soloing. Whole Lotta Love was a medley, with as many as 5 or more songs being performed in a row. Take out the oldies that made up the medley section and you'll find that the live WLL nearly matches the studio version in length. If you're looking for a short WLL without the oldies medley, you'll have to look for the WLLs from 1969 to around the 1.9.70 RAH show(see your Led Zeppelin DVD, Disc One). Also, the 1979 Knebworth part of the DVD has a short WLL with new middle part replacing the theremin bit.

It used to be the operating words in baseball were "Play ball!" Today it's lawyer up! A Rod needs a rod shoved up his arse. What a clown...that press conference of his was a sham. Why hold one if you're not going to answer the question everyone wants to know? Answer the question, jerk! Oh poor A Roid..."these last seven months have been the worse of my life"...oh boo hoo hoo. Don't do the drugs then, bitch. Asking for sympathy now shows how despicable A Roid is. I don't understand this post. Wieters is a catcher, A Rod is a 3B...why should the O's lose Wieters if A Rod is gone? If Wieters is of such dubious character that he would leave the O's for the Yankees, then he wasn't worth buying his jersey to begin with.

Never made it to the Cape. Got to Newport and Jamestown islands in Rhode Island. Mystic Seaport in CT. Boston three times and Providence once. Explored much of the Southern part of Rhode Island from Narragansett to Galilee to the Point Judith Lighthouse. I've got hundreds of photos of my trip to sort thru...and I just got off work and it's my niece's birthday. It'll take some time before I put everything in order. But yes, I did have fun. A helluva lot of fun.

Was in the mood for some peaches and plums today(actually I'm ALWAYS in the mood for peaches and plums, haha), and the Farmers' Market was literally bursting at the seams with beautiful varieties of each. Thought about going for some White Peaches, but I had recently had a bunch of those on my trip that I picked up in Pennsylvania Amish Country. So I went with a nice, basic yellow, goldpeach. Mmmmm. Heaven. For the plums, there was a mind-boggling display of samples to try. The winner was the Heirloom Japanese Burgundy plums.

So was I, my man. I just get tired of having to use emoticons to show when I'm having fun. Thank you. Love your posts and your passion for 1977. Even if you're off your rocker about the Nutrocker segments of NQ. Whenever I hear those it reminds me of Emerson, Lake & Palmer...and one should never be reminded of ELP when listening to Led Zeppelin.

Sorry Nutrocker, your arithmetic is off...they did 7 out of 8 HotH tracks. Nearly the complete album.

Warum? They better be good reasons.

"The Crunge" was played in one form or another on the 1972, '73, and '75 tours. It popped up instrumentally in "Dazed and Confused" in '72 and for a nearly complete take with vocals, check out March 12, 1975 Long Beach. "The Crunge" was frequently used as the bridge between "Whole Lotta Love" and "Black Dog" on the last leg of the 1975 tour.

Sandwiches, veggies and dip, yogurt...pretty standard-issue choices, if you ask me. Robert should substitute olive oil for the mayo in his tuna salad.

You're wrong. The gestation of albums and their marketing campaigns means both the Stones and Black Sabbath albums were in the works before "Celebration Day" was released. Besides, the days are long gone since the Stones kept tabs on Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Who, and the rest of their peers.

If I ever save Brooke Shields from drowning, I'm hiring Led Zeppelin to play at my birthday party.

Obviously, it helps if you have kids or friends with kids...otherwise you're probably unaware of Finn and Jake and their adventures in The Land of Ooo. Marceline the Vampire Queen. The Ice King. Princess Bubblegum. Thanks to my nephew, who loves the show, I've been hipped to this wacky Cartoon Network show...much in the same way my nieces turned me on to the Powerpuff Girls once upon a time. Well, we're having a release party for the "Adventure Time Encyclopædia" today...it should be a fun day. http://laluzdejesus.com/portfolio/events/ Here's the itinerary of the event. If you live in the area, come on down. Tom Kenny(voice of "Spongebob Squarepants") is also scheduled to appear. Bring the kids.

^^^ Ok. Understood now. This could be a down year for the AFC. The Super Bowl champs are unraveling. The Patriots, Broncos, Texans and Steelers are the presumed powers and probably rightly so(especially in Denver's case, where they will feast on a weak division), but they all have issues to address including the question of whether their QB can make it thru the season intact. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger are living on borrowed time at this stage in their careers. I don't see any iron-clad power team in the AFC...all the contenders have clay feet, IMO.

Same old same old.

^^^ Billy Preston would have been awesome! He brought great energy and pizazz to the Stones shows at the Forum in 1975. And one of the greatest afros in history!

Well, I'm not getting any younger. Time may be on Sue's side, but it definitely ain't on mine.

It keeps getting worse for the Baltimore Ravens...they're having a Super Bowl hangover of epic proportions. Latest setback is Ravens cornerback Asa Hackson suspended for the first eight games...performance-enhancing drugs. "...Kansas City the best QB in the league..." Did I read you right, Paul? Has all that Mountain Dew has softened your brain? Even if you have a high opinion of Alex Smith, by what rationale can you rank him above every other QB in the NFL? Above Rogers, Manning, Brady?

NuMystic, I think one problem might be the fact that you are downloading these shows. God only knows what bit rate and source the person who uploaded the file used. Or even if it's correct or complete song and/or show. Then, there's the virus problem. And I know your 'persnickety' ears are a curse not a blessing, hehe. One of the greatest Led Zeppelin concerts of all time is the evening show of September 19, 1970. But you'd never be able to enjoy it because of the poor sound quality. The same with another smoking hot show: July 20, 1973 Boston. I do have a question...are you able to listen to mono records? Because I find some of the Millard recordings have better sound and fidelity than many early Rolling Stones albums and other records of the 50s-60s. Because of the way Millard recorded his shows, the audience doesn't interfer with the music as it does on the average audience tape. Besides, soundboards don't give you any more clearer picture of what the band sounded like than a good audience tape. The sound coming into the soundboard wasn't necessarily the sound that the audience heard coming out of the PA. I'd rather listen to the audience of Seattle '73 than the dry, brittle soundboard. As for my sources, for 6.23.77 "For Badgeholders Only", I listen to my original Dragonfly vinyl, the Genuine Masters DVD-A, or my Scorpio label cd. I have heard that the Sgt. Pepper's Badgeholders Club release is supposed to be good, too. For 6.21.77, I have EVSDs Christmas Edition of "Listen to This, Eddie" and the Genuine Masters DVD-A. For 4.24.69, I have Godfatherecords "Dancing Avocado". This is especially nice because you really get to hear Jones and Bonzo clearly...as long as you don't mind Plant low in the mix. For 10.10.69, I use Godfatherecords "L'Olympia". For 9.14.71, I use my "Going to California" vinyl, or "Pollution Alert", "California Expedition", or "Berkeley Daze: 2nd Night" on cds. A warning...the first song "Immigrant Song" is average SQ, then the quality vastly improves in "Heartbreaker" as the taper realized he had his machine in mono and switched to stereo. 1.22.73, my preferred choice is Godfatherecords "Any Port in a Storm". For 3.7.70 I have EVSD's "Intimidator". For 2.16.75, I have Godfatherecords "Rock Saint Louis Roll".

I like both HD and DM...but lyrically, DM is the weaker of the two. However, subjective opinions of the worth of the song aside, I believe there were performance issues that precluded the addition of "D'yer M'ker" to the setlist. While Jones was a nimble musician and was able to play keyboards and play bass pedals simultaneously, allowing for the performance of many Zep classics such as "No Quarter", "Trampled Underfoot", "Rain Song", "Kashmir" and "SIBLY", "D'yer M'ker" was a song that needed both a real bass and piano. Jones was good but even he couldn't pull off that trick. Why couldn't he have used bass pedals like he usually did, you ask? Because "D'yer M'ker" was a reggae/50s rock n roll pastiche, and for reggae, the bass is most important. You cannot get away with using fake bass. It would've sounded terrible. Since Jones couldn't play bass and piano at the same time on stage, the only way they could have solved their dilemma was by hiring a 5th musician(Ian Stewart?) to play the piano part. But that went against the ethos of Led Zeppelin in concert: just the four of them. So no "D'yer M'ker" in concert. Save for a brief vocal snippet by Plant just before "Black Country Woman" at the 6.23.77 Badgeholders show.

Are you talking about that guy who put out those great-sounding "Genuine Masters" dvd-audio releases or that Wilson guy? That we know of. I, myself, find it hard to believe that the band would go to the trouble of soundboarding St. Louis and Baton Rouge and NOT Chicago. We have soundboards from just about every major stop(New York/Nassau, LA, Seattle, Vancouver, Dallas, St. Louis, Baton Rouge) of the 1975 tour. Why wouldn't they have taped Chicago...or Philadelphia and Montreal, for that matter? Somebody is hoarding those tapes. Or those remain among the few that weren't stolen from Jimmy's cache.