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Jimmy's Greatest Misses


Nutrocker

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Agreed. I can't remember - was Woody an official Stone by then? If not, perhaps the better performances in 75 are down to him not yet having his 'feet under the desk', as it were, and therefore not yet in a secure enough position to join the Keef Recreational Club full-time.

I think it's a tragedy that Mick T quit, and all over a few songwriting credits. I'd kill to hear live versions of 'Time Waits For No One', although I suspect that Keef would have rendered them unlistenable :D

Yes.

The 1976 shows were still better than 90% of other bands' shows, as was illustrated by the difficulty getting tickets, there was a national mail lottery for tickets in the UK. But we got lucky, and it was a terrific show.

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Over the Hills and Far away, Knebworth, August 11th. "You suck Jimmy!!!!!" is clearly heard. Ha!

He broke a string on this version didn't he? Man, Jimmy was breaking so many strings in the latter days.

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I believe it was the show on the 4th from knebworth but i could be wrong/ the version of achilles last stand on youtube that everyone sees is not it if you look hard youll find this one though. Jimmy completley forgets to slam his pedal down for the first main chords and the guitar sounds really bad but later he breaks his high e string and has to improv the rest of the song. This part i like and i think he did a great job especially the ending notes.

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One dude who really couldn't play when fucked up was Tommy Bolin. Man, he would just miss these whole passages of songs onstage with Deep Purple.

Not really a mistake, but funny - I was listening to 'Snow Jobs' the other night (Vancouver 3-19-75) and at the end of IMTOD, after Robert does his "Oh my Jesus" parts, he hits the long one "Jeeee-uh-ee-uhjee-eee..." CLEARLY wanting Jimmy to come back in NOW. Jimmy doesn't come in, he just leaves Robert standing there with his 'pants around his ankles'. After Robert struggles to turn it into something, Jimmy THEN comes back in. I was just laughing out loud at that.

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Re: Keith sloppiness vs. Page sloppiness - keep in mind that the Stones are a two-guitar band and, even in the 70s, usually had a keyboard player or horn section accompanying them. Keith could get pretty far out of it with Wyman, Watts, Taylor, Ian Stewart, Bobby Keys or whoever still holding it together; Page only had Jones and Bonham to rest on. There's a quote from Nick Kent I included in my book Out of Our Heads: Rock 'n' Roll Before the Drugs Wore Off: "All [Keith's] guitars had capos on them so he didn't have to play barre chords...There was a different guitar for every song because he was too fucked up to make the effort." Keith's great, but in the last few clips I've seen of him at recent Stones shows he just seems to be whacking away at the occasional F or Bb.

If you want to hear a really fucked-up guitar player, check out Stevie Ray Vaughan's monologue from "Life Without You" on Live Alive: "If you give it all in the first place you never had a problem 'cause you already had it...Main thing is we gotta stop puttin' each other down...We got to go around and teach people the right way to not understand the bullshit...I'm talking about Africa, okay?" Party on, man...

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Re: Keith sloppiness vs. Page sloppiness - keep in mind that the Stones are a two-guitar band and, even in the 70s, usually had a keyboard player or horn section accompanying them. Keith could get pretty far out of it with Wyman, Watts, Taylor, Ian Stewart, Bobby Keys or whoever still holding it together; Page only had Jones and Bonham to rest on. There's a quote from Nick Kent I included in my book Out of Our Heads: Rock 'n' Roll Before the Drugs Wore Off: "All [Keith's] guitars had capos on them so he didn't have to play barre chords...There was a different guitar for every song because he was too fucked up to make the effort." Keith's great, but in the last few clips I've seen of him at recent Stones shows he just seems to be whacking away at the occasional F or Bb.

If you want to hear a really fucked-up guitar player, check out Stevie Ray Vaughan's monologue from "Life Without You" on Live Alive: "If you give it all in the first place you never had a problem 'cause you already had it...Main thing is we gotta stop puttin' each other down...We got to go around and teach people the right way to not understand the bullshit...I'm talking about Africa, okay?" Party on, man...

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I gotta find that book! I quite enjoyed your Page bio.

It should be mentioned a lot of Nick Kent's quotes need to be taken with a LARGE pinch of salt...back in the day Kent was as fucked up as most of the rock stars he was writing about. His claim about Keith and the capos in '73... <_< well, as anyone who's heard the Stones' 17-10-73 Brussels show will testify, Keith was more than able to hold his own. Maybe Nick "Bent" (as Zeppelin called him) meant 1976- easily the Stones worst tour IMO (actually I reckon that's pretty much universally accepted!) A whole tour worth of Tempe '77 quality performances...

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I'll cast the first stone:

- Seattle '77, "Over The Hills And Far Away". :D What kind of a solo was that? Out of tune, wrong key and compelling John Paul Jones to bust out some very jazz-fusion sounding backing. Ouch!

That was feckin' great! Surely I can't be the only one who thinks it was cosmically funky. I was dancing around my office to that one. If that's an example of Jimmy fucking up, please gawd that I would be able to play at his appalling level. :)

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That was feckin' great! Surely I can't be the only one who thinks it was cosmically funky. I was dancing around my office to that one. If that's an example of Jimmy fucking up, please gawd that I would be able to play at his appalling level. :)

Perhaps a bit of a Pepsi Challenge is in order...here's a 1972 performance of "Over The Hills":

You can't say Page's playing in '77 compares to that in any really good way. That said, the, er, reckless abandon with which Jimmy plays in 1977 does have a certain charm. But with a steady diet of banana daquiris, french fries and heroin I suppose anything's possible...

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Perhaps a bit of a Pepsi Challenge is in order...here's a 1972 performance of "Over The Hills":

You can't say Page's playing in '77 compares to that in any really good way. That said, the, er, reckless abandon with which Jimmy plays in 1977 does have a certain charm. But with a steady diet of banana daquiris, french fries and heroin I suppose anything's possible...

(IMO) Au contraire, the entire 1977 LA Forums week had spectacular versions of OTHAFA. The 23rd being an absolute favorite, Jimmy's guitar work had evolved significantly since '72 (IMO)

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(IMO) Au contraire, the entire 1977 LA Forums week had spectacular versions of OTHAFA. The 23rd being an absolute favorite, Jimmy's guitar work had evolved significantly since '72 (IMO)

:D No need to defend '77 Page with me...it's my favourite Zep tour, after all...all I was saying in comparing '72 to '77 is that Jimmy definitely was on the ball more in 1972.

Admittedly, using examples from Seattle '77...well, it is a bit of anomaly for 1977 performances, as they weren't all that bad...the New York and LA '77 shows kicked major ass, no question. Really, for this '77 fan only Oklahoma City, Louisville, the third Landover gig (28 May), Seattle and Tempe are below-par gigs. (I'm not counting the 9 April Chicago show or San Diego 'cos band members were under the weather B) )

I still maintain that Seattle "Over The Hills" solo certainly is one of Jimmy Greatest Misses, though. It makes you wonder (no pun intended) if Jimmy had used stuff from Seattle '77 on the Zeppelin DVD set what he would have used. But perhaps that's a whole other discussion...

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:D

Right on.

1977 Los Angeles (22 and 27) - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

Both days have Jimmy tuning the guitar mid-performance; not sure if it's entirely his fault, the guitar's, or even the guy who tunes the guitar, but it pretty much brings both performances to a brief awkward stand still.

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Right on.

1977 Los Angeles (22 and 27) - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

Both days have Jimmy tuning the guitar mid-performance; not sure if it's entirely his fault, the guitar's, or even the guy who tunes the guitar, but it pretty much brings both performances to a brief awkward stand still.

That's funny...haven't heard the June 22nd for a while (not the greatest sound quality, though it's a fucking good show) but I do notice it on the 27th (my favourite acoustic set of the whole '77 tour). That reminds me of his atrocious "White Summer" from April 6 in Chicago...it sounds like Ray Thomas From Scotland had the ol' Danelectro tuned to CADGAD, 'cos that low D string is waaaaay outta tune! And you can hear Jimmy trying to fix it but ultimately saying "fuck it!". Needless to say, the out of tune guitar affects "Kashmir" as well...

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Perhaps a bit of a Pepsi Challenge is in order...here's a 1972 performance of "Over The Hills":

You can't say Page's playing in '77 compares to that in any really good way. That said, the, er, reckless abandon with which Jimmy plays in 1977 does have a certain charm. But with a steady diet of banana daquiris, french fries and heroin I suppose anything's possible...

Thanks! I'm not well connected at all in the Zep boots dept., so I enjoy hearing the sundry scraps that come my way. The '72 performance is very nice, very solid but for some reason it's not completely "wowing" me the way the outrider solo on the Seattle '77 did. The '72 is a quality performance but it's quite close to the record. I like it when Page goes off to his own distant star.

I must nose around YouTube for these notorious 1980 performances that people speak of. I've never heard any.

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