1975 is one of my least favorite live years for several reasons (Plant's voice, Jimmy's tone, the lengthy and bombastic setlist, etc.). That being said, if I were to put together my top 5 favorites, it would look something like this: Seattle 3/21 - This has everything but the kitchen sink! Great performance with Plant having his best night of the year. And the momentum keeps up for the entire 3 and a half plus hours. Long Beach 3/12 - Great energy with another performance that sustains itself all the way through Philadelphia 2/8 - Page's best night of the year imho. Such a treat to hear him playing at almost 1973 levels! Earls Court 5/18 - I agree with what others have said. I think the Earls Court shows as a whole are overrated, but this is the best one imho and definitely an essential show. NQ is the version of the year and one of the best ever. Chicago 1/22 - I chose this mainly because of the unique setlist, and because Page and Plant are surprisingly good despite their shortcomings. As for the other shows from that year, I'll be perfectly honest, many of them have that feeling of the "same old same old". The setlist (from early February onwards) barely changed at all, and while we have so many excellent soundboards, they all have a similar feel. But I digress. I think I could do fine with just the above five.

Happy 50th Anniversary!

Man! It's crazy the amount of new sources/shows that have been popping up in the past couple of years. We've been thoroughly spoiled. Even though it's not as good quality, it's nice to now have more of the show.

I definitely agree that Earls Court as a whole is overrated. I'd actually argue it's a bit of a step backwards from the March shows. Plant sounds worse and Page has some erratic moments. That being said, there are some standout moments. NQ from the 18th is an all time great version imho and Stairway and Dazed from the 24th are great for the era among others. Ultimately, I could see a good solid live album being made out of the shows, of course Page would have to do a lot of splicing with Plant's vocals to get him to sound consistently decent. As for why the demand for an official release, it's simple: we know for a fact that three of the shows (at least) were multitracked. The tracks on the DVD offer a nice glimpse of what an official release could sound like. And given how starved we are of new official material, it's worth getting excited about (though I wouldn't hold my breath for an official release any time soon).

You are all too kind! I'm glad to provide these shows to a larger audience. My goal from pretty much the beginning has been to present the most complete and/or best sounding versions of every show possible. I've generally found that fan remasters or raw transfers tend to provide the highest sound quality as opposed to boot releases (although there are definitely exceptions). Occasionally I upload rarer versions of shows. In addition to the Seattle audience recording, I recently upped the audience recording of Landover 5/28/77 which in my opinion is FAR superior to the soundboard in terms of enjoyment. As to who provides the best remasters, I'd have to agree with William Austin. Liriodendron consistently amazes me with how he is able to take flat, dry soundboards and transform them into something approaching official release quality. His remasters of Frankfurt 80 and Landover 5/30 (among others) are superb examples of this. Grame is also fantastic with the 75 soundboards. I'd add two more names to that list: Dadgad and Nite Owl. Dadgad has a serious knack for taking shitty audience tapes and improving them in the best way possible. He also does great work with the 73 US soundboards. Nite Owl specializes in matrices, and he's right up there with Bluecongo in terms of how well he combines multiple sources. His versions of 4/27/69 and Blueberry Hill are easily the definitive versions of said shows. Really the props should go to those who put in such hard work to give us these remasters and transfers. I'm just putting them out there. PM sent.

A much more enjoyable listen than the soundboard by itself imho: