Nice! Really cool to learn, after reading this thread, that they kept getting better and better and so these later shows were tight. I recall thoroughly enjoying it, but didn't fully realize that they were really peaking on this tour. I'm from Canada, so I actually had to travel to LA to see it. Such a good time, I'll never forget it!

I've never had this level of post concert buzz in the parking lot right after a show. Sept 19, 1998 in LA was the only show I've ever been able to make it to and I'll never forget it. The stairway teaser at the end of BIGLY...I was beside myself for a sec, as I thought they were actually gonna play it. Such an unreal night and unreal buzz...and I was stone cold sober!

Are there any good websites devoted to these Page & Plant late 1990's years? There are so many unique Zeppelin websites, There must be a few sites that dive deep into these concerts. I'm most hoping to see info on the 1995 Tour, but the other two are also needed. Actual bootleg archives would be the best, but even write ups, stories, set lists, etc. Something with excellent attention to detail like The Garden Tapes would be amazing...but maybe not that detailed, lol.

Shake My Tree was a very cool song. I really liked that it was included in the Page Plant '95 tour. Really cool "new" song for them.

Agreed. This book was good and chalk full of detail, but waaay too much Crowley for me. Not saying it wasn't a thing in Jimmy's life and needed some referencing, but Wall leaned on it too heavily, imo. The book was also terribly structured; it didn't read smoothly. He had clearly done his research, but the way he crammed it in was annoying to read. I am glad I read it, for the detail though.

Agreed, the earlier Celebration Days were better. The 1973 (1976) TSRTS too was my staple for live Zep for a long, long time; not having access to anything else. I was never really thrilled with the 1973 Celebration Day and sorta surprised they would open the set with it. It wasn't a great second punch after RnR. Then when 1972s HTWWW was released...that Celebration Day blew me away. It's actually fun to listen to. Especially the last half of the song. So rockin n upbeat. I've since divested heavily into the bootlegs of course (one good internet upside) and this 1971 version above is a lot more like the good HTWWW version. Odd that one year later it would become so flat, by comparison.

Agreed, this version of In My Time of Dying rocks. Would he have not done it if it wasn't actually Saturday night? Glad it was. I know, I'm not sure why they never played The Rover either. It's a concert worthy song for sure. When I saw Page/Plant in 1998 they teased Stairway right after BIGLY. I was nearly beside myself as I knew at that time they'd never play it. I was bummed but in some ways also floored that I got to hear even that much with my own ears. I do think if the '75, '77 and '80 tours had not each been cut short, we would have gotten more of the un-played songs. Thanks for the aftermath accounts. I bet you slept until 3pm the Tuesday after, haha. You saw my final take of my compilation project, cool. PM me if you want it. No doubt you have the songs already, but for someone like yourself you might appreciate the in between editing of it. Anytime, lemme know. Cheers, Brad

What an account Strider. So amazed at all of the detail you could recall! Given it took you 5 years to write it (life got in the way), I don't feel so bad taking nearly all summer to read it, haha! Life (vacations, yard projects, etc) also got in the way for me. Plus I'm a slow reader who wants to absorb every detail of this seeing as I never got to see Zep in concert; I was born this very year. With probable bias, I think '77 was a fantastic Zep Tour year. Haters can hate and get bent. I gotta say if you consider the '77 LA Concerts as one entity, this goes down in some serious Zep history, imo. My 'best of' live versions compilation of their concert material has 9 songs from these LA nights. Considering the hundreds of concerts to draw material from, I'd say that in itself is telling of just how cool this leg of the '77 concerts were. So awesome and crazy that you got to witness pretty much all of it. Questions. Where about in SIBLY are there notes of Tea For One? I've heard this before, but somehow never seem to locate...then I doubt it's the version I'm hearing...then I get side tracked by how cool SIBLY is and forget to listen for TFO. Also, in Show 5 after That's Alright Mama, the bootlegs capture Plant teasing the crowd with a few verses of D'yer Mak'er. Did you recall hearing it live that night? Did you think they were going to play it? Any concert accounts/recollections on this? One last thing, after the final night, did you sleep for a week? how long did it take to recoup from that epic battle? Thanks again for this thread! Cheers, Brad

This is what I do on or as close to every Sept 25. Get hammered and watch at least 2.5 hr of live Zep. Good times indeed.

I'll have to give Largo another go. I was leaning towards a better plant performance, so likely overlooked the rest of the band in this one. Thanks!

Thanks Strider! Coming from you, that means a lot I think my growing up on Destroyer has made this sound you speak of so normal to me, that it sounds so good to me. And yes, I did cut out the guitar solo completely from this project. It's like Avant-garde Jazz to me; a bunch of random experimental noise. Not even after years of listening did I ever like it. For me it was the unenjoyable drag down in any of the 77 concerts stuck between all of the good stuff. In my boot, it was affixed to Achilles, so I couldn't easily just skip over it either. I'll have to give another try to your TYG recommendations. I did try a lot, but none had the same raw emotion in plants voice like this one. I guess that's what I like in slower songs, to be overflowing with emotion. So wish they did I'm gonna crawl while all together. @shnflacwav do tell me if it's been a good revisit...or am I off on an island alone on this one. Always a possibility.

Thanks! Glad you liked it. The lesser played songs like this didn't always have a lot to chose from. With enough searching and recommendations I think I captured pretty good versions of everything out there, quality wise anyways.

Oh, and in staying on topic, damn, I can't wait for this new release. If it's half as good as the rumours, I'll have to update my best of project with these versions of Four Sticks and Gallows Pole! Super exciting times.

I'm with Plant77 on this. I was barely alive when Zep disbanded and finding these boots in the late 90's at fringe record stores was amazing. Given that was the only way, I'm not upset that my material became free years later. I got to enjoy it for many early years of my youth. Road trips, mix tapes, etc. Not to mention just simply getting more zep than less, and sooner, was awesome. So when the internet then flooded me with mountains of more zep, it was just a gift to me to be eternally grateful for, to whomever put it up. I also agree that it's the only way Zep will live on. One day sadly our three remaining members will pass on, and then likely no more official releases of anything. So all we have left is what boots remain out there. What still surprises me to this day that my boot of I Gotta Move (69 Stockholm) is infinitely better in quality than every other version I've heard on BlackBeauty or other versions that's been shared with me. I don't know what the maker of "A Secret History" did to it to make it sound so good, but it's awesome. I just finished a live compilation project (see my thread, shameless plug) and I opted for a few of my actual boot versions over what was made available by others. They sometimes seem to sound better, at least to me. So, to me, collecting vs free is not a black and white topic. There are pros and cons to each approach. It's so graciously awesome that so many concerts are out there for free, I certainly cannot afford to buy them all...in fact there so many, I'm not sure if I could find the time to listen to each of them, haha. But there's also value in buying a good boot when it's there. In fact every time Black Beauty goes down, I say "thanks goodness I have my boots, they'll never leave me". Not to mention some money does need to be paid to incentivize makers to keep 'em coming and keep the quality up. Pretty sad that us hardcore fans can actually use this band as a platform for bickering. Stay focused on the music, it's why we're here.

Such a thorough review! I wish I got these a while ago. I will definitely give them a listen, and possibly include it into my own Sets. I think if I post another version of this, The Forum might ask "Is he not done yet?", lol. Super interested in you Gallows recommendation. Destroyer's Ten Years gone might be hard to beat. I've listened to a ton and nothing so far has topped the raw emotion Plant belted out that night in Cleveland. I should note that I meant Zeppelin never performed those songs live. As for the soundchecks, with the exception of Fry's Night Flight that I did include, I found they all really lacked the energy of a concert performance, so I've left them out. They were more like rehearsals for studio work...to me anyways. Page n Plant performed quite a lot of stuff over the years, solo and especially in their 95/96 tour...which I'm looking fwd to tackling next! True, I used stuff from Celebration Day, but technically they were billed as Led Zeppelin.

This is my 3rd and I Final take on this and I swear I won't plague the Forum with another one of these, haha. If you've followed or contributed in any way to my previous two takes, you may recall what motivated me to do this. If not, here's a quick summary. Curiosity got me asking, of all the Live songs Zeppelin did, what do I have in my library...and just how many songs did they perform live; 58. This led me to realize I've been living under an internet rock for a very long time. There are so many unreal zeppelin websites that I could not have done this without. Black Beauty was the most relevant by far, ditto this Forum. The music and content between those two sites was an unbelievable resource. A huge thanks to devoted Zep Fans who offered insights and thoughts as I took on this ~2.5 year task. Then there's sites like The Garden Tapes by Eddie Edwards; such masters level devotion to the official live content. And other detailed sites like the Plantations website, the site that itemized cover songs they did, etc. So much good info out there that helped me tackle this project, thanks and kudos to all. So here it is, my final cut at Zeppelin's Best Of Live Performances. The biggest difference from before is the influence of the 2003 DVD songs I finally got onto mp3, thanks to Xolo1974. For these (and the other official release songs) I've embedded into the file the reference date/location of the performance; thanks again to the high detail of The Garden Tapes work. A few new Heartbreaker and Dazed versions made it in as well as a few other recommendations from Forum Folks. There's also a lot more B-sides as many recommendations couldn't be left off. I'd like to put another big shout out to Michael Fry who offered his unreal work from his 50th Anniversary Box Set efforts (see his forum post) not to mention his editing advice via the Audacity application. With it I've been able to make so many edits, most of which were tinkering with Plantation intros and outros to songs. But it also helped with so many other small things that improved the listening experience; often a 30+ minute effort to improve less than 30 seconds of song, haha. Between those and a lot of advice, thoughts, feedback, etc. Mike's fingerprint is on this a bunch! Note that this project focused more on song quality, as some muffled audience versions were good but sounded too much like someone was snuffing out my speakers with a pillow. So I did focus heavily on official releases, soundboards or very good audience recordings. Between their live content and cover tunes, there's over 81 different songs. But when you consider the multiple versions of their major hits and the 15 B Sides, this massive seven set 125 song "concert" compilation comes in at over 18.5 hours of some seriously sweet Zeppelin listening. Some songs are referenced by their official release CD/DVD. Some songs are referenced by their well known concerts which I pulled several songs from. The remainder are referenced directly with their location and date. Hopefully this is easy to follow. The below can let ya put this together yourself, and then even modify it to fit your fav song preferences. Feel free to PM me if you'd like my copy as it'll save you a lot of time...maybe even years, haha. Enjoy! Set A Most of this set is targeted at songs created in 1968-69. I cut A15 down to mostly just the melodies. The first part was pretty poor in quality yet the melodies were in much better condition...and considering WLL shows up a lot in the following sets, this altering made sense to me. The first two B Sides show up in Set A now, as more cool versions came my way. A1 Good Times Bad Times – Celebration Day CD A2 I Can't Quit You Baby – Live At Olympia CD A3 The Train Kept A Rollin’ – Texas Pop Festival A4 I Gotta Move – Stockholm March 14, 1969 A5 Sitting And Thinking – Fillmore West A6 As Long As I Have You - Fillmore West A7a Dazed And Confused - 2003 DVD (Mar 17) A8 White Summer/Black Mountain Side – Live At Olympia CD A9 Killing Floor/Lemon Song – Fillmore West A10 Pat’s Delight – Fillmore West A11 The Girl She Got Long Brown Wavy Hair – BBC Sessions CD A12a Babe I'm Gonna Leave You – Whiskey A Go Go A13 Beatles Interlude - Osaka A14 Your Time Is Gonna Come, WLL excerpt - Tokyo Sep 24, 1971 A15 WLL Melodies - Osaka A16 You Shook Me – Live At Olympia CD A17 How Many More Times – Fillmore West A18 Communication Breakdown – Live On Blueberry Hill Set B This set is aiming towards 1970 songs. By somewhat coincidence I stuck a lot of the Blueberry Hill material together, in it's original sequence as it sounded great the way the band had it. Forum folk brought my attention to RAH's Heartbreaker, which legit is an outstanding version. Given it was cut off, I thought the latter half of an Osaka concert was equally good and fitting to complete the song. I transitioned it as best I could but have to admit it's ok, but not perfect, yet enjoyable enough to keep. B1 We’re Gonna Groove – Montreux Mar 7, 1970 B2 C’mon Everybody – Royal Albert Hall B3 The Girl Can’t Help It – New York, evening Sept 19, 1970 B4 Something Else – BBC Sessions CD B5 Out on the Tiles – Live On Blueberry Hill B6 Bron-Yr-Aur – Live On Blueberry Hill B7 Since I've Been Loving You – Live On Blueberry Hill B8 Organ Solo – Live On Blueberry Hill B9 Thank You – BBC Sessions CD B10 Ramble On – Celebration Day CD B11 What Is and What Should Never Be – BBC Sessions CD B12 Bring It On Home – HTWWW CD B13a Heartbreaker – Royal Albert Hall n Osaka B14 Whole Lotta Love – Live on Blueberry Hill B15 Blueberry Hill – Live On Blueberry Hill Set C In this somewhat 1971 set, I did another WLL melodies. The beginning of WLL HTWWW was very similar to TSRTS and others, so I cut it and focused on the material that was different. Celebration Day below is such a good version, but the start up was relatively drab, so I swapped a few seconds from TSRTS to liven it up. C1 Immigrant Song – HTWWW CD C2a Celebration Day – Osaka Sep 28, 1971 opening w TSRTS CD (original) C3 Long Tall Sally – Royal Albert Hall C4 The Lemon Song – Whisky A Go Go C5 Friends – Osaka C6a That's the Way – HTWWW CD C7 Gallows Pole – Copenhagen May 3, 1971 C8 Four Sticks – Copenhagen May 3, 1971 C9 WLL Excerpt – HTWWW CD, Cut ~10 mins, starts w Millionaire C10 Stairway to Heaven – TSRTS CD (original) C11 How Many More Times – Texas Pop Festival Set D This mostly 1972 themed set begins to transition into 1973. Black Country Woman is a bit lower in quality, but I believe was the only time they played it before the '77 concerts, so it seemed right to include it. I put D9 & D10 on the same track so they would play seamlessly like they're supposed to. D1 Communication Breakdown – BBC CD D2 Dancing Days – HTWWW CD D3 Money – Frankfurt June 30, 1980 D4 Louie Louie – HTWWW bootleg LA June 25, 1972 D5a Over the Hills and Far Away – Snow Job D6 Black Country Woman – Seattle June 19, 1972 D7 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp – 2003 DVD D8 Travelling Riverside Blues – BBC Sessions CD D9 Misty Mountain Hop – TSRTS CD (2007) D10 Since I've Been Loving You – TSRTS CD (2007) D11 Stand By Me – Osaka Oct 9 1972 D12a Rock and Roll – HTWWW CD Set E The songs I was setting aside for this set started to take the form of the 1973 TSRTS, with E5 being the only real exception. I somewhat followed the order of the original NYC set list. With D12 finishes off Set D, it helps blend into the start of Set E given it was the concert opener in ’73. I again put E2 & E3 on the same file so they would blend properly without my mp3 player botching it up with a pregnant pause. Any recommendations for a good MP3 player? It does this with all my other albums too; really annoying. E1 Black Dog – HTWWW CD E2 The Song Remains the Same – TSRTS CD (original) E3 The Rain Song – TSRTS CD (original) E4a No Quarter – Snow Job E5 The Crunge – WLL excerpt Dallas Mar 5, 1975 E6a Dazed and Confused – HTWWW E7 Stairway to Heaven – Last Concert E8 Moby Dick – HTWWW CD E9a Heartbreaker - Earls Court E10a Whole Lotta Love – Detroit July 13, 1973 E11 The Ocean – HTWWW CD E12 Thank You – NYC July 27, 1973 Set F This set is an attempt to feature Physical Graffiti a bit. F6 and F10 are excellent versions provided by Michael Fry, really cool listens. I added a small touch to F10 and hopefully blended it well enough that you'll notice it and not notice it at the same time. I started adding more plantations in these later sets, I felt they added to this project making it feel more concert-like without just cutting this exactly song by song. Cheers to Strider who directed me to the soundboard for The Wonton Song, it's legit the most clear of the few versions out there; great find from a guy who seems to have some of the most obscure and in depth knowledge of the band. F1a Going to California w Custard Pie interlude – Houston May 21, 1977 F2 Trampled Under Foot – Earls Court F3 In My Time of Dying – '77 LA Show 4 F4 Sick Again – 2003 DVD F5 Sex Machine – Inglewood Mar 25, 1975 F6 Night Flight (Soundcheck) – Chicago July 7, 1973 F7 The Wanton Song – Minneapolis Jan 18, 1975 F8 When the Levee Breaks – Chicago Jan 20, 1975 F9 Since I've Been Loving You – Last Concert F10 Tangerine – Earls Court combo 18th & 24th F11 White Summer – Royal Albert Hall F12 Kashmir – Destroyer F13a WLL/Rock And Roll – '77 LA Show 3 Set G The final set is focused on live material they played after 1975 and then also has some very cool versions of their earlier stuff. The difference between Take 2 of this project and Take 3 mostly shows itself in Set G, as two more songs got moved/added in here while some others got replaced and/or got moved to the B sides. Overall, there’s a lot of songs and each version tends to be long. This set now clocks in at just over four and a half hours culminating in a grand finale of some serious tunes! I had to edit Black Country Woman and Hot Dog together. I liked the immediate start of Hot Dog, but again, my mp3 player's pregnant pause was ruining things. For similar reasons G25 & G 26 are also one track, you'll see why with how I've edited them. I liked how 1977s G12 sets up 1975s G13. NQ is such an artsy concert song. So many versions sounds unique at first, which didn't make selecting a few 'best' versions for this project easy. I quarreled over a dozen versions, listening to them repeatedly for a week; and at 25-30 mins each, it was an undertaking, haha. I may have gotten caught in a Zep vortex, but I did finally see some similar themes in the versions, which helped reduce it to the few in this 'concert'. In this set I merged the first half of Destroyer's NQ with the June 11 show that was cut off. I did later found the full recording, but preferred the combo as it reduced 2 versions into 1 while making a long and epic NQ. I also did a Stairway combination in this set. I think it comes off really cool, but you'll have to judge for yourself. Yes, there’s 2 versions of WLL in this one set. The 1980 version, however, is so different from all of the others, that G14 and G29 are hardly the same song…and I spaced them out by over 2 hrs, so I hope it’s not too much WLL. Lastly, I had another version of The Crunge in my pile of songs I liked, but had no place left for it to go. So I decided to extend the final WLL by adding it to the Crunge portion of the song. I don’t expect most will like it, but it is nice to have the final song of the long final set of this massive concert to be a bit longer than just 14 minutes. G1 Heartbreaker – '77 LA Show 1 G2 Black Dog – Snow Job G3 It’ll Be Me – Fort Worth May 22, 1977 w Mick Ralph of Bad Co. G4 Black Country Woman – Destroyer G5 Hot Dog – Rotterdam June 21, 1980 G6 The Battle of Evermore – Destroyer G7 Nobody's Fault but Mine – Destroyer G8 Ten Years Gone – Destroyer G9 Since I’ve Been Loving You – '77 LA Show 1 G10 How Many More Times – BBC CD G11a Dazed And Confused – TSRTS CD (original) G12 That’s Alright Mama – '77 LA Show 5 G13 Communication Breakdown – Earls Court G14 Whole Lotta Love – Last Concert G15 Over The Top – Destroyer G16 The Ocean – TSRTS CD (2007) G17 All My Love – Last Concert G18 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp w Dancing Days - '77 LA Show 6 G19 For Your Life – Celebration Day CD G20 Achilles Last Stand – 2003 DVD G21 No Quarter – Combo first 16 mins Destroyer + last 26 mins NYC June 11, 1977 G22 In My Time of Dying – NYC June 7, 1977 G23 Over The Hills And Far Away – '77 LA Show 1 G24 Stairway To Heaven – Combo of 80% '77 LA Show 3 + 20% Destroyer G25 We Shall Over Come – Osaka September 28, 1971 G26 Kashmir – '77 LA Show 1 G27 In the Evening – 2003 DVD G28a Trampled Under Foot – Destroyer G29 Whole Lotta Love – Combo of TSRTS (Original), with The Crunge Seattle Mar 21, 1975 B Sides These are the biggest change for Take 3 of this concert as they grew from 3 songs to 15 thanks to all the great forum suggestions. A bigger B-side makes for more of a switch up to the Concert which I liked. Again, the idea is to slip these versions in and out of their respective places in the set lists. I've edited the intro/outros to these so they transition well into the concert. F13b was an attempt at mimicking F13a, I think they work together; sorta how they do in the '77 LA Concerts. A07b Dazed And Confused - 2003 DVD A12b Babe I'm Gonna Leave You - 2003 DVD B13b Heartbreaker - Orlando Aug 13, 1971 C02b Celebration Day - Toronto Sep 4, 1971 C06b That's The Way - 2003 DVD D5b Over The Hills And Far Away – Inglewood Mar 27, 1975 D12b Rock And Roll - 2003 DVD E04b No Quarter - London May 18, 1975 E06b Dazed And Confused - Osaka Sep 28 + 29, 1971 E9b Heartbreaker - Long Beach Jun 27, 1972 HTWWW JRK Remix E10b Whole Lotta Love – Offenburg March 24, 1973 F01b Going To California - 2003 DVD F13b WLL 2003 DVD followed by RnR Landover May 30, 1977 G11b Dazed And Confused - Vienna Mar 16, 1973 G28b Trampled Under Foot – Brussels June 20, 1980 Reference Concerts Official releases are referenced within the mp3 file as best I could by referencing The Garden Tapes work. The rest are either fully detailed above or are referenced only by their concert name as they provided many songs for this project. These are noted and referenced below. Whisky A Go Go - LA Jan 5, 1969 Fillmore West - San Francisco April 27, 1969 Texas Pop Festival - Dallas August 31, 1969 Royal Albert Hall - London Jan 9, 1970 Live On Blueberry Hill - Inglewood, September 4, 1970 Osaka - September 29, 1971 Earls Court - London, May 25, 1975 Snow Job - Vancouver March 19, 1975 Destroyer - Cleveland April 27, 1977 LA Forum Concerts '77 LA Show 1 - June 21, Listen To This Eddie '77 LA Show 3 - June 23 '77 LA Show 4 - June 25 '77 LA Show 5 - June 26 '77 LA Show 6 - June 27 Last Concert - Berlin July 7, 1980 As best I can tell, these songs were never performed live by Led Zeppelin. Some had rehearsals or soundchecks, but nothing of any real live performance or complete song. Boogie with Stu Candy Store Rock Carouselambra - Some rough soundchecks Custard Pie Down by the Seaside D'yer Mak'er – Sampled but never performed Fool in the Rain Hats Off to (Roy) Harper Hots On for Nowhere Houses of the Holy I'm Gonna Crawl In the Light Living Loving Maid Night Flight – Never performed, only a soundcheck Royal Orleans South Bound Suarez Tea for One The Rover – Sampled in '77 concerts but never fully performed My research into this project focused on their legacy concerts and recommendations in the Forum from you folks. I didn't listen to or go through all of their live material but I feel this collection of songs is pretty solid though. Don’t like my set list? Take this set list and then make it your own. Remove what you don’t like and put in what ya do. The above should at the very least make a good starting point for ya. I’ve been listening to many versions of all of their songs for over two years now and am still not sick of it. It shows just how solid, creative and variable these guys were. If you do start a project, I strongly recommend good record keeping from day 1. A few versions I didn’t record which concert they were from…it took me forever to figure it all back out. I believe I got it all sorted out, but I guess you'll have to listen to it to find out! DM me and I'll send you the downloadable links. Cheers, Brad

How much of these two books have been discredited? like some or most of the books? Any notable things you remember that are straight up wrong? Overall, that's too bad, they were such good reads.

Unless I missed it in the thread, there's this too. It was the first Zep book I read. Lots of crazy stories.

Yup, and I just saw it again in the Treasures of Led Zeppelin by Chris Welsh, which got me thinking about it again.

Yes, apparently this is exactly what happened. but I can't seem to find a boot that matches this taking place. I've read it in two books now.

If I have this right, Zep played a prank on Phil Carson by ditching him mid song in a Japan 1971 show. Does anyone know the show and song where this occurred? I tried finding it once, to no avail, but I'm sure I just wasn't patient enough. Apparently they got booed for it and kinda is one of their few professional stage regrets. Anyways, I'm hoping to hear this happen. Does anyone know these fine details?

This is awesome, thanks!

So new material does surface still, really cool. And by the looks of it, maybe 1-2 per year. Thanks for this info!

In the past 5 years or so, how many completely new recordings of old concerts have surfaced? or even a Soundboard, when it was thought there was only an audience recording? To be specific, I'm wondering from the 1968-80 period of concerts. I see new uploads every week on BB, and always just presume they are remasters or something like that.

Where are you putting your finished Stereo Project? Black Beauty? Have you finished your project? The songs on this thread sound really great!