There was only one original vinyl issue of Listen to This Eddie, on Rock Solid Records. It makes no mention of Kramer. There have since been 50,000+ different versions of the show on CD. Those discs can say whatever they want, and often take reviews from online. Doesn’t make the story true. Half of those bootlegs always say “Direct from the Master”, for instance.

Listen to This Eddie wasn’t released until 1984, when Van Halen was huge. Far more likely to have the bootleg be about a current hitmaker who had made negative comments about the band’s live ability than for the title to be about a record producer from the 1960s. On top of the fact that the Eddie title doesn’t even make sense as it relates to Kramer. “Listen to this”, for what? To hear how good the recording sounds? That’s a stretch. Van Halen had specifically talked trash on Page’s live ability, and if you got in a time machine back to 1984 and said “I’m a big Eddie fan”, everyone from children to housewives would know that you were referring to Eddie Van Halen.

I think the timeline still fits with Van Halen. The Eddie bootleg was released 1984-1985 (according to discogs and bootlegpedia), and the Van Halen quote about Page was in Guitar World, January 1981 (according to wiki).

Why so sure?

It's uuuuuuup.

One thing to add is that there are actually 3 recordings from the 4 January dates. The first date on 1/23, the last date on 1/26, and the recording probably from 1/25, which was always thought to be from May (dated as 5/27 or 5/28...I don't remember).

Have you compared it to Empress Valley “Cobra” source mix from the box set, or Winston Remasters Great Love Affair? Is it a clone of one of those? I think those are the only mixes based around that source (stereo Source 4 aka Source 5)

😎

Brannon refers to Source 4 and Source 5 based on his definition of what each source’s first appearance was. What he calls Source 5, most people refer to as Source 4, the Tarantura “new” source from the 90s. It wasn’t until Source 5 appeared in the 2000s that people realized that parts of that one had been used as a splicing source on bootlegs before the Tarantura Source 4 came out.

EV's Cobra source is Source 5, TMOQ alternate source is Source 3, and Antrabata source is Source 4.

If it is the Doinker version, then it’s Source 3. The problem with Doinker’s version is that it didn’t sound as good as the other low generation versions of Source 3. Kind of muffled on the top end for some reason.

Eat a Peach is a mix of Source 1 from the Neutral Zone CDs, and Source 1 from Empress Valley, including the splices EV did to other sources. There aren’t any mixes of Sources 2 with Source 3 probably because Source 3 is pretty much complete and Source 2 is only a handful of songs, most of which are incomplete. Source 5 sounds much closer to the sound of Source 3. That mix (plus some Source 1) are what the Cobla/Cobra bootlegs are.

The reason there is no “definitive” version of Blueberry Hill is because there are so many ways to mix the sources. Source 1 and Source 3 are most common, followed by Source 5. Source 2 sounds nice, but is incomplete and only on vinyl, which makes it pointless to mix with. Sources 4 and 6 are less good, but are the only ones to feature the complete band introduction, so get used for that one part. Source 4 is complete, and Source 6 misses the last couple of songs. I don’t think Source 6 has even been released anywhere on bootleg. Source 1: TMQ Vinyl (the original bootleg to use the name “Live On Blueberry Hill”), mono source first put out on vinyl and then later released 20 years later on CD from original tapes used to make the vinyl, via the LOBH Neutral Zone CDs. Empress Valley released the pre-bootleg tapes in their box set. The EV tapes have the most tape from the source, but don’t sound as good, probably due to age. Source 2: “Live at the Los Angeles Forum 9-4-70” - incomplete stereo source but Rubber Dubber. Only found on vinyl. Source 3: Stereo source used on Cobla/Cobra CDs. The whole show, but spliced with other sources to fill tape cuts. Source 4: Mono source released on Tarantura CDs from the 1990s. It’s complete, but is not as good as the other sources. Source 5: Stereo source that was released on Tarantura 2000 box set. Source 6: Released online years ago. Incomplete. Not as good sounding as 1,2,3,5.

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/january-12-1975

The version you used as a reference (net source on BB site) runs much too fast. At least a whole step. Has a noticeable effect on how the band’s performance sounds. The TCOLZ version runs at the right speed.

That's the Balboa Soccer Fields on Balboa in Encino. Bangers/Dark Horse is 3-4 miles away, down Balboa>Burbank>Reseda. https://goo.gl/maps/txU5GvAwRDK2

Pre-beard at Bron-Yr-Aur in May 1970. By Bath in June 1970 he had the beard. http://www.jimmypage.com/photos/bron-yr-aur-1970

Exactly. And remember, the sound coming from the soundboard was a direct feed, with no speakers involved. Think about that. If you have ever listened to a bass-heavy album on computer speakers vs a proper home stereo setup, you know what I mean. The band was running an absolutely massive sound system in 1977 (check the preshow pics from Seattle 1977). All of those large speakers and subwoofers are what hit the audience. So, that "thin" Alembic bass and Bonham's kick drum on the soundboard sounded MUCH different when they got pushed through those speakers.

I don't think anybody really knows the answer to this, besides those who truly are in the know. We can listen to these recordings as much as we want, and make deductions based on cuts, or certain qualities of the recording, but the reality is that there are about a dozen things that can affect how a soundboard recording will sound, most of which have to do with the sound rig itself. The band's sound changed every single tour, so naturally the soundboards will sound different as well, regardless of the media that was used. The interesting thing here is that the Cleveland 1977 soundboard is a one-off, made by a venue member who plugged in his own cassette deck to the board, via a patch provided to him by the soundcrew. Yet, put Cleveland side by side with the 1977 soundboards from New York, Landover, or Fort Worth, and there really isn't that much difference. The Cleveland recording we all know so well doesn't sound worlds different from those other soundboards from the 77 tour, and yet those other boards were presumably made using the soundcrew's own professional equipment. Which says to me that the recordings we are hearing have less to do with the media recorded to (cassette vs reel to reel) as they do with the actual feed coming from the board. There are dozens of variables that are involved. Microphones, preamps, compressors, limiters, effects, the board itself. Just give a listen to a modern soundboard from a band like Pearl Jam or from any number of bands who have allowed soundboard patches. A lot of these recordings sound "flat" or compressed, while others sound nice and open. And yet these are all being made in high resolution digital with very nice equipment. So, again, it's not the media being recorded to, it's the larger rig that matters most. Keep in mind, the priority for the soundcrew was to run a sound rig that was as good as it could possibly be for the crowd listening to it at the concert. The soundboard recording wasn't a priority for any other reason than to make the band's own reference copies. If they cared about documenting the shows in "best" quality, they would've lugged around a multitrack to every show, which we know that they didn't do.

Yes. The West Palm Beach show on March 8 was cancelled. Check the events section in the timeline on the official zep site. There is a copy of the letter regarding the cancelled show.

I really don't think so. Conspiracy Theory came out just as the internet communities really started getting serious about documenting the official live history of shows and tapes, so it really was one of those rare shows that slipped through the cracks. Kind of like how the Dallas shows were thought to take place on different dates, or that there was a second date in Pittsburgh. Online tour itineraries were still full of errors about a lot of shows. There are still rumors about extra/cancelled shows in the itineraries from most years. I think the past 5-10 years has seen a ton of cleanup in that regard, with fans having checked posters, advertisements, and gone to libraries or online newspaper archives to confirm/disprove individual concert dates. Lots of cool websites up now too. Royal-orleans, ledzeppelin-reference, theyearofledzeppelin, the official site. It wasn't long after Conspiracy Theory came out that ticket stubs and newspaper articles were found. The only other show that has been rumored was from Austin 1975, but that show was disproven by lack of ticket stubs, lack of newspaper articles, no posters, and even a testimonial from a fan who was at University of Austin at the time who confirms that no such concert could've happened in Texas without him knowing about it.

The Cobra source is great too. That's the stereo one with the girl saying "Robert Plant get over here" before Whole Lotta Love or one of the encores I think.

Yeah, I've never seen/heard of a real lowgen for the Dub/Blimp/TMOQ source, which is why that Empress Valley bootleg was such a surprise, since they obviously got ahold of a copy that only they have access to. Those Neutral Zone CDs were copied so many times by other bootleg labels that it doesn't surprise me that eventually some tape copies were getting traded as lowgens.

Thanks for posting the info. Had forgotten who was involved in those remasters. The version you guys did of the 3/17/73 Munich show is the best version I've heard of that show. So good. Regarding the Dub tape, what I can hear on the Heavy Vibraphones version is that the usual "faked" crowd noise pasted on the beginning of the Vinyl and Neutral Zone CDs, before Immigrant Song, has a loop of a few more seconds of crowd noise that someone must've cut-and-pasted to make sound longer. The original sample came from Dub pasting it on that tape copy that was put onto the vinyl and Neutral Zone CDs, so it shouldn't exist as a "longer" version via a lowgen or the master. It's from after Heartbreaker. There's also the same repeat note before Since I've Been Loving You on the Vibraphones tape, which matches with the Vinyl/Neutral Zone CDs, and all of the songs are cut in the same places, so no new tape either. So Vibraphones was either an edited and re-arranged copy of the Neutral Zone CDs, or an edited version of one of any number of bootleg releases that also copied the Neutral Zone discs. Speaking of, Last Stand Disc did a good version cloning the Neutral Zone CDs and putting the songs in the right order. That's a good one to get to at least get the song order right in the same sound quality as the original Neutral Zone bootleg.

Does the low gen copy of yours have the repeat note at the beginning of Since I've Been Loving You? Does it have all of the same cuts between songs? If so, then it's sourced from the Neutral Zone CDs. There were lots of bootlegs that came out after the Neutral Zone CDs that put the songs back in the correct order, but they also all kept that same repeat before Since I've Been Loving You and they all had the same cuts between songs as the Neutral Zone CDs.