When you say you're surprised, do you mean it more in a positive or negative way? The soundboard shows that this is actually a fairly sloppy performance, although slightly above average for 77. Are you planning on doing all of the NY run? The sound quality the next night isn't very good unfortunately. I'm surprised you didn't seem to notice how the boys lose track of one another during Kashmir.

Strider, I have a Reddit account, and any time someone on the Zeppelin subreddit asks what being at a Led Zeppelin concert was like, I link to this post. I consider this required reading for all Zeppelin fans, especially those who were too young or not even born yet to see Zeppelin. I can vividly picture each and every detail you recount, and I think it's allowed me to at least get a taste for what made a Zeppelin concert so special. Man you are one hell of a lucky guy to have seen them so many times! From the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing your memories with us. They truly are a treasure.

This show has always been one of my favorites, and if it weren't for the awful tape warbling from No Quarter through The Rain Song, this would be my go to show for the 1973 US tour. That being said, I love the vibe here. The crowd is clearly psyched to see them, and the fact that this show was rescheduled and the tour is ending a day later makes it feel very special. Maybe it's not the most technically proficient show of the tour, but it's probably the most "fun" if that makes sense. A soundboard for the first two thirds of this show would be most welcome. Have you by chance read Strider's brilliant and detailed account of this show? IMO, it should be required reading for Zeppelin fans. Best concert account I've ever read:

Ah, I'm a few days late, but Happy Belated Birthday Sean and Rick! Hope you both had a great day! 🎉🎊🎂

In honor of the show's 45th anniversary, I'm listening to Baltimore 7/23/73 in full for the first time. I'm only up to Black Dog so far, but MAN is Robert killing it here! This is the best I've heard from him for 1973. Damn shame about the sound quality, but at least we have this great show on tape. Thanks again to my friend who was kind enough to give me a link for this show...you know who you are.

I know I sent you this on Reddit already, but I'd like to see any of the following at some point: 1/15 Stoke 3/24 Offenburg 5/13 Mobile 6/3 Los Angeles 7/17 Seattle 7/21 Providence 7/23 Baltimore (if you can stomach the shitty sound ) No rush or anything though!

Finally managed to take my two LA 77 compilations (Millard only and all six shows) and put them all into two different, full length (minus Stairway due to copyright) videos.

Same. If I could attend a concert with multiple artists, I'd probably choose Woodstock. But if it had to be a single act, Led Zeppelin in Seattle on June 19th, 1972 would be my pick!

Personally I've never been big on Kashmir from this show. I've seen some praise for it, but whenever I listen to it, all I can think about is how sluggish the band (Bonzo in particular) is. It sounds like it's being played in slow motion. That being said, I do agree with you in general that 77 gets more hate than it deserves. There's roughly half a dozen shows that are truly bad/awful. The rest range from okay to outstanding. The LA run alone makes this year worthy imho.

Pretty good list. I'd say you're mostly spot on. Only changes I would make would be: putting Chicago 4/9 in the bad/weird category given how Page was unwell that night. I'd also put Landover 5/28 in that category as well. That might just be my least favorite Zeppelin performance ever. Page is awful and Bonzo's off and the whole thing drags at a snail's pace. I mean a 33 minute drum solo? Ugh! Not to mention the soundboard for that show is dreadful. Dry as a bone and sludgy as hell. I'm inclined to maybe add San Diego 6/19 to that category as well owing to Bonzo's performance, but you are right that the rest of the band is great. Other than that, I'd pretty much agree with this list.

Hi Steve, I was on Wikipedia and I came across this interesting tidbit regarding the band's summer 1969 tour of the US: Is there any truth to this at all? Or is this just complete bullshit from Wikipedia?

Your review inspired me to check out this show. Holy cow where did that performance come from?! Page is on freaking fire! Hell, even Plant sounds strong here. Even Dazed (which I expected to be like most 75 versions: long and meandering) was fiery and powerful. For those who haven't checked out this show, I can't recommend it enough. Sure the March shows may be more epic and the Earls Court shows may have a bigger vibe, but in terms of the band being tight and focused, it really doesn't get much better than this for '75. This is a truly underappreciated show.

Thanks. I knew he went for it at at least one of the Australasian shows but I couldn't remember which. Shame his voice declined so rapidly after that.

So I'm assuming for this year you're going to be grading on a steeper curve given the level of Page's playing? So for example this OTHAFA is a B+ by 73 standards, yet would be an A or A+ by 75 or 77 standards, is that correct? I'm really looking forward to your breakdowns from this year and I'm particularly curious what you think of Chicago. Is it bad by 73 standards, or is it bad in general (if you take Plant's voice out of the equation cause let's be honest, he sounds like shit at that show)? Regardless, there's a ton of gems from throughout this year. The last year where the band (minus Plant) was firing on all cylinders at a consistent rate.

Not sure if anyone's messaged you regarding this, but there's only one audience recording from this show currently in circulation. It's distant, but the atmosphere is great. If you have bootleg ears, it's a pretty damn good performance. Here's a YouTube upload of it minus Stairway.

Another excellent review. I agree that this show is nowhere near the LA shows, but I don't think it's quite as bad as many make it out to be. Jimmy's erratic yes. Plant is hoarse yes. But Bonham's on fire and Jones (vocals notwithstanding) is solid as usual. And there are some good highlights like NQ, TYG, the acoustic set, and STH. I prefer the audience recordings for this cause they mask a lot of the flaws and the gig actually comes across as being pretty good. What do you plan on doing next? Tempe perhaps?

I put together my own "Frankenstein" edit of Dazed from the Euro 73 tour. I used Vienna, Hamburg, Essen, and Offenburg, and combined my favorite parts into one "ultimate" version. My editing isn't that good, but I think it turned out pretty well.

You're welcome! Let me know what you think!

If you're interested, I did my own source mix/compilation of this show. Here's a FLAC download for it: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ivmk5EXNO7M5FfLKT4ZyRPwRVUO1esJL Flying Rock Carnival 1971 Complete is a good release, but it still has problems. Here's a detailed description of how I compiled the sources together, as well as the pros and cons of each source/release. Also, while it's been a while since I listened to the show, Plant nails the "lady" line at Sydney 2/27/72 IIRC.