I've been thinking of a bit of a goofy hypothetical as I've been listening this week: if the New York and Los Angeles runs were divided into pairs comprised of the first night of each, second night of each and so on and you could only pick one, which pair would you choose? I think I would have to go with the fifth night of each because to me, the gap between June 13 and the other New York shows is much bigger than the separation between the Top 4 Los Angeles shows. A better recording of June 8 would make it a tougher call since June 22 is my favourite show of the year, but for now I'm going with the two penultimate shows. Also, for argument's sake let's assume that we have all 12 shows complete and in the same excellent sound quality -- 12 soundboards, 12 Millard's, 12 multi-tracks...whichever is easier for you to imagine. I realize that the current sound quality (June 8) or completeness (June 14) can make it hard to judge, though...

I'm listening to this show right now as well. I was wondering if @Strider can recall anything about "Over The Top" from this show since it's the only sizeable chunk missing from any of the six nights. Was it a marathon version like the previous night? They were certainly in a "long" mood this show, as it features the second-longest "Noise Solo," third-longest "No Quarter" and third-longest "Stairway To Heaven." The version I have clocks in at 3h 12m, so a decent-lengthen "Over The Top" would make this the second longest show of the week even though it has the shortest encore and is the only show of the six without a pre-encore extra, "That's Alright Mama" tease notwithstanding.

Absolutely right. I'm personally quite fond of 3/27/75, but yes, length is not synonymous with quality, for individual songs or entire shows. Speaking of 3/27/75 and length, it holds the crown of average length per song by a significant margin. They only played 15 songs that night, compared to 17 on 3/21/75, 20 on 5/25/75, 21 on 6/27/77 and 24 on 6/19/72.

3/21/75 and 3/27/75 are both 3:42 and change, minus crowd noise between encores. I was paying close attention to it when I was listening three months ago lol.

Oh, true. I was thinking of it as a multitrack because I've only ever really watched/listened to the portion on the DVD.

Yeah, the last third of the Kezar '73 is the only outdoor soundboard I can think of other than Texas Pop.

Indeed. That list seems a bit odd though -- I take it they've cut out every second of between-song banter and such, but how does that shave 40 minutes off of May 25, 1975, yet only 23 minutes or so off of March 27? I suppose 20 songs as opposed to 15 could make that much of a difference, but that seems nuts... It also tells me that Seattle '72 is likely in the bottom half of the Top 10 in actuality since there's a good 10, maybe 15 minutes cut.

June 22, 1977 - Los Angeles -- My personal favourite '77 show. You know it's a good one when the biggest mistake is Plant singing a verse out of order in the second half of an especially thunderous "Kashmir"... - Close to, if not all-time best versions of IMTOD, OTHAFA, Noise Solo, Achilles - Crushing opening 1-2-3 punch just like the previous night - Great, raw SIBLY - Longest NQ of all time at 34 minutes! - Very good acoustic set -- Plant sounds great on GTC! - One of the best '77 drum solos -- very thunderous - Great and unique Stairway with Plant not singing some variation of "Does anybody remember laughter?" and Page skipping the extra bar on the 12-string and jumping straight into the (awesome) solo

I've wondered this too. They really should hire an archivist like the Dead have so that there's at least someone with more of a fan's perspective who has a seat at the table as it were. Perhaps whoever gets the keys to the vault after Page is gone will have a different approach to what's deemed release-worthy.

Fair. Really eh? I had no idea turntables ran that expensive actually. I'm sure mine wasn't that much lmao. I have noticed that about the speakers, yes. I find the car speakers are the best, but we lucked out and got a Fender sound system in there that's a lot bigger than most car systems because it came with the technology package, which I convinced my mom she needed for the GPS 😈

You're right that the same boot can sound noticeably different depending on the hardware you're listening with, but I think general assessments of sound quality are pretty fair. I could play LTTE or Blueberry Hill through my phone's speaker and it would still sound significantly better than something like Seattle '72 through car speakers or a really good stereo. As for the vinyl debate, I notice a difference, but I have no idea what my setup cost because it was a Christmas gift, so I'm not sure where it would fall on your spectrum. I would say CDs are closer to vinyl than they are to mp3, but vinyl is still superior.

It's always a great day for 9/19/70!

That makes sense. I'm pretty sure he mixed and matched vocals and instruments between the three MSG nights though: http://www.thegardentapes.co.uk/tgt.html

As far as the three shows at MSG being the only ones, I believe some of the backstage footage is from Baltimore a few days earlier. If the tapes were rolling already for that show, even if it was only the audio, that would be quite a treat. If they did tape Baltimore though, I'm not sure why Page wouldn't have used some of Plant's vocals from it at the very least as it was arguably his best show of the year. He sure went to great lengths to fix some of Plant's issues at the MSG shows, so why wouldn't he just use the Baltimore vocals if he had them sitting there? Sadly, I've never read anything suggesting that the tapes were rolling already in Providence, which is my favourite '73 show. It's not like the MSG shows are bad, but if they had recorded and filmed a week earlier instead...Seattle, Boston, Providence, Baltimore -- imagine the live album that could've been compiled from those shows!

Haha exactly! I've been pumped all week for The Big One tomorrow 😆

I just stumbled upon this trailer that ledzepfilm uploaded 20 minutes ago, says it will be released on Sunday. If the whole thing looks as good as the trailer, it should be quite something!

Steve basically covered it. As far as different venues affecting a soundboard they most definitely do, but in a roundabout way. Since the soundboard is a direct copy of what was being sent through the PA, it features the same corrections that would have been made to adjust for idiosyncrasies of the venue. For example, a bass-heavy soundboard suggests that the natural acoustics of the venue were lacking in bottom end. I can't recall who or in which thread, but someone on here explained this in more detail a month or so ago. The other reason the North American '75 boards sound so good, especially compared to the '77 ones, which you would expect to be as good or better since there was an extra two years of technology available, is that they were recorded on reel-to-reel tapes, whereas the '77 boards were recorded on cassette tapes -- I guess new technology isn't always an improvement eh?

June 13, 1977 - New York -- Always been one of my favourites. I'd say it's a Top 5 show for '77, perhaps even Top 3 behind 6/22 & 6/21.

The interesting thing is, in the case of the drum solos, almost all of the very best versions happen to be from shows for which we have the soundboard. Pity the soundboard for 7/17/73 Seattle cuts off just before "Moby Dick," as that's the only "must hear" version I can think of that is only available on an audience source. The 6/19/72 Seattle version is really good too, but it has a sizeable cut -- probably safe to assume the whole thing was stellar though, given the quality of the rest of the show... That would be awesome! I'm a drummer, mind you 😂

I've only ever listened to Godfather's That's Alright New York, which sounds great.

I've wondered this before as well. I understand why it was included in the 1977 setlist because Plant needed extra breaks for his foot (even though it was probably past its "sell by date" then as well), and the transition from it into "Kashmir" was certainly thrilling. The '77 versions of it were also reasonably concise apart from the last few shows in Los Angeles and the Seattle show. It just seems kind of antithetical to the "cut the waffle" approach to the rest of the 1980 setlist. It would have been very interesting to see what the North American setlists would have looked like had Bonham not passed. I'm sure "cutting the waffle" in America would have taken much more restraint...

Aren't the assertions of "best audience recording ever" usually in reference to the first night? The 24th is definitely the better performance, but the 23rd is an all-time great recording sound-wise.

Thanks guys! That's sort of what I'd gathered. I agree, it's a shame.

Does anybody know if a matrix has been made of the 5/31/73 Los Angeles show? I have the audience recording, which sounds really good, but I know there's also a partial soundboard (which I've listened to bits and pieces of here and there). It seems like too good of an audience recording to not make a matrix with, but I can't seem to find if one has been made or not... If anyone knows of one and can point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated!

You're a brave soul! 😂 I've only ever cherry-picked the first three, and I think even that was just to listen to those marathon versions of "Over The Top" on the 26th and 28th for the historical significance. I just take a '77 break between Ft. Worth and the last night in Landover 😆 It does make you wonder what happened during that three-day break, because they were smoking in Ft. Worth.