This night was an absolute scorcher, with Plant in possibly his best voice of the entire European 1973 tour. The Song Remains the Same is my favorite performance of the song ever. Where is that rumoured FM recording!?

The only two I skip almost every time are Moby Dick and Guitar Solo. Some of the older tunes get skipped in later years, especially Rock and Roll and Communication Breakdown; although Black Dog and Heartbreaker get the boot fairly often as well. This is because, as a general rule, I have found that the newest material gets the most interesting and soulful renditions on any given tour. 1977...I usually start those shows at Nobody's Fault but Mine since during The Song Remains the Same and Sick Again you can usually tell the band is still warming up and there isn't much variety in the performances night to night. And it's a rare mood when I feel like continuing the show past Achille's Last Stand. It's just such a powerful climax, and beyond that are a bunch of songs they've done a hundred times before. Dazed and Confused is trouble because the song kept on growing whether or not they had anything new to add. There are definitely some forty minute renditions where every second is fantastic (like 21 March in Seattle) but there are also times when it goes on that long and it just bores you to tears. So I end up skipping to the next thing if it's a drag. No Quarter has the same issue, but to a lesser degree. I'm someone who finds the LA 1977 performances of NQ to be real snoozers (best one I think they ever did was 24 July 1979 in Copenhagen, and that's only ten minutes or so.) I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again: Zeppelin needed someone to fix their setlists. These guys should have been doing main sets that were ninety minutes long, with encores going to two hours at most. And Song Remains the Same should never, ever have been the opener. Not only was this song perfect to reengage an audience after a slow tune like Ten Years Gone or Since I've Been Loving You, but putting it at the start of the set meant the band simply wasn't ready to play it half the time. Plant's voice would almost always be incredibly rough and Page's playing was usually sloppy. Misty Mountain Hop would have been a much better choice. Anyway, I'm just glad we have so much to listen to that some stuff gets skipped every time.

I don't know, but it's clear there is a world of difference between the performances on 11 August and 4 August. Plant even brings up the bad press on the second night, so I don't think it's a stretch to guess that it was the reason why. It takes courage to play in public again after being away for that long, especially to such a large crowd. Then the press says you blew it, so back to square one! Putting yourself through that process again could easily take ten months.

The story goes like this. Zeppelin, remembering the shaky starts to their 1975 and 1977 tour, finally take the time to be truly well-rehearsed before going out in public again. They play two warm-up shows to small venues in Copenhagen, and the insatiable crowd drives them to remarkable performances. Led Zeppelin, understandably nervous to play to a crowd of two hundred thousand, deliver a few lackluster performances amongst an otherwise strong set at Knebworth on 4 August 1979. Definitive versions of Kashmir and Achille's Last Stand in particular. However, the press have constructed a narrative wherein punk is the future and Zeppelin are some archetype of the past, and who are also on bad terms with the band due to relatively neglectful UK tour stops and early animosity due to the press underestimation of quality in the band's music. The press/critic crowd, who are already going to Knebworth wanting to savage Zeppelin, decide to focus their reports on the low points of the set. Zeppelin lets the coverage get into their heads and deliver a less-than-stellar performance on 11 August. With a dull thud, whatever plans the band had to continue performing in 1979 are cancelled. Years later, having seen the bad press of Knebworth, the first footage to emerge from 1979 is of the 11 August performance, seemingly confirming the critic reviews. Most fans subsequently write off 1979 for Zeppelin. ... In my opinion, a soundboard matrix with the audience recording of 24 July 1979 would make the 1975 and 1977 tours irrelevant. That may seem like a dramatic thing to say, but I really believe it, for a number of reasons. Plants voice had not been so strong since 1972. Page's guitar work was as fluid as 1973. It may have been John Bonham's strongest performance ever. 1977 was Bonham's most aggressive and experimental year, but I don't think most of that experimentation was successful. Listening to The Song Remains the Same from 21 June 1977 for the first time gives you a rush but the LA 77 performances always end up fatiguing because Bonham is overdoing it. Too many fills, too many rolls...it's too much! And he's always hitting hard! In 1979, he was sticking to what worked, and man was he ever dynamic in regards to volume. What a range! The setlist was a summation of what makes Led Zeppelin truly unique as songwriters. No one has ever made music seem so much larger than life than Led Zeppelin. I can imagine other bands writing songs like Since I've Been Loving You or Good Times/Bad Times, but I can't imagine anyone else writing something like Kashmir or Misty Mountain Hop. The 1979 set seemed to be focused on all the mythic/mystical/epic songs they had written. Most of the excess of 1975 and 1977 had been eradicated...besides the Noise Solo. Gone were the days of a 45 minute Dazed and Confused, and bizarre upbeat jams in the middle of No Quarter. Gone was Moby Dick! ... If you haven't listened to this night in Copenhagen, or you've heard that everything after 1973 was terrible (that is certainly a popular opinion), listen listen listen. It's incredible!

I'm very skeptical about this...can we even be sure of what these are recording? Onstage would be an odd position to place a deck that is also hooked up to the soundboard.

Interesting, never heard of these before. It was a long tour with only a few stops (six over the course of a month). Only two nights have AUD sources, but it is confirmed to be the tour where Immigrant Song premiered and Whole Lotta Love took How Many More Times place as medley/finale. Could be great shows for all we know, but I doubt it if Page has never said anything about them. Either that or the tape turned out badly/went missing.

Mind-blowing, in my opinion, the ultimate version of No Quarter of all time. People complain about the crowd at this show, but the way they clap in the middle of the song is utterly perfect, driving the band above and beyond.

My vote is for 28 May 1977 in Landover. People don't think much happened during Zeppelin's stay in Maryland, especially this night, but I've yet to hear a more incredible version of Kashmir. The lead-in of White Summer/Black Mountain Side is also exceptional.

There are two performances of Achille's Last Stand that are in strong competition for the greatest of all time (in my opinion.) Weirdly enough, you linked to one of them (30 May 1977 in Landover), but the other candidate for me is 29 June 1980 in Zurich. https://youtu.be/0i6cxMAnXpU?t=23m52s The song had a much groovier feel on this tour, whereas in 77 it was almost frantic. I like both styles, so it's impossible for me to choose which is my favorite. Anyway, I clearly disagree that every performance was worse than any performance in 77, or that it sounded stupid on this tour.

This might be a little off-topic, but for the past year I've listened to so many bootlegs, with this Led Zeppelin community being a huge part of that. Last night, I finally became a bootlegger! Snuck a recorder in my pocket and got the whole show...here is one track! http://picosong.com/jqPV/ Has anyone else around here recorded a show?

I made a compilation of Tour Over Europe 1980 and I think it's pretty good.

What a great dissertation on No Quarter. I completely agree that 1975 was the peak year for this song, partly because I was never sold on the Nutrocker section. It's fine on its own, but at the center of such a gloomy epic it comes across as sorta goofy. I agree that Landover were not great shows overall, but they were on fire for some songs. 5/28 Kashmir is my favorite performance of that song ever, and 5/30 Achille's is in the top two. Nutrocker, as an expert of 77, I'm wondering what you think was the best show of their tour. Los Angeles was obviously their best run, but what single show was best of tour in your opinion? 4/28 at Cleveland? 6/22 in Los Angeles?

Excellent post, The Old Hermit. Although I would buy tickets for a Zeppelin reunion in a heartbeat, Celebration Day is perfect as a one-time event. It's easy to imagine John's hand on his son's shoulder during Kashmir. They were products of their time, but the music they made was timeless. It's hard to imagine what would have come next for either band, but I think a Beatles reunion would have been a good idea, whereas it was simply impossible for Zeppelin since Bonham was gone.

I'm not sure it would have been wise, but considering Bonham's death was an unfortunate accident (the man apparently partied like that all the time) I think they all at least would have survived another American tour. Whether they found a way to clean up or not, I think they had at least one more "Houses of the Holy" in them, maybe better. I mean, there's plenty of strong stuff on ITTOD, and that was with low input from Jimmy, who had been the engine of their creativity up to that point. I do doubt that they would ever again be as popular as when Stairway to Heaven blew up, but I could see them having a lot of success in the 1980s.

Yes, of course it was the right decision. Bonham wasn't just a drummer, he was THE drummer. However, I disagree with the general sentiment in this thread that things were so bleak for the band in 1980. I think their peak was either Physical Graffiti or Earls Court, with their low point being the first leg of the 1977 tour. As they neared the end of that tour, I think they were feeling good and getting ready to record again, only to have tragedy strike. In Through the Out Door was mostly John Paul Jones "powering through" in an effort to wake everyone up, but it didn't work. Then Knebworth made them feel like relics. It took the Tour Over Europe 1980 to regain the momentum that had been lost for them as a band. The planned US fall tour was called The 1980s - Part One for a reason. They were more feeling more ambitious then than they had been since 1975.