Best version of the 6/23/77 show

[godzilla777]

Just trying to find the best version of this great show. Any thoughts??

[Strider]

The original Dragonfly vinyl, Parts 1 & 2. No CD release of "For Badgeholders Only" I've yet to hear has come close to sounding as good as the vinyl. Unfortunately the vinyl didn't have the complete show.

For all the CD releases that are complete, or as close to complete as is possible, I'd rate Scorpio's 3 cd release of "For Badgeholders Only"the best.

[cookieshoes]

Personally, I like to make an informal compilation using two separate low generation sources. For the first 4 songs (The Song Remains the Same, Sick Again, Nobody's Fault, and Over the Hills) find the compilation out there labeled "low gen 3 source mix", compiled by Weedwacker. The first source on there has the first 4 songs.

For the rest of the show, go with Weedwacker's transfer of 1st generation cassettes of Mike Millard's source, which starts at Since I've Been Loving You and goes for the rest of the show. Yes, it has some tape machine errors inherent to the recording, and cuts from tape flips, but the overall sound is incredible.

Combine those two sources and you have all the songs from the show.

For compilations, where they patch every possible moment, there was the old Zeppelin Digital Volume 3 compilation, which matrixed that first source, Millard, and the vinyl, but it has a lot of phasing going on at spots where the sources don't exactly match up. Sgt Page's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a copy of the Zeppelin Digital Volume 3 version, so no point in looking for that.

For the vinyl source (which many prefer, but I don't - too midrangey to listen to), a guy named Neckey did a compilation of that source, plus the first song from that first source I mentioned. He used a few boots to plug the gaps in the Millard source. I think his runs a little fast though. A guy named Dadgad also did a vinyl remaster, but he just transferred the vinyl only, and so is missing the first song.

Then there's all of the boots. Scorpio did a complete version using patches which turned out decent and which I think might be the most complete version of the show out there (EDIT: Agree with the poster above that it's probably the best one to get overall), with stuff like missing crowd noise after songs and stuff like that. Wendy released a version of 6/10/77 which features the soundboard of the guitar solo from 6/23/77 as a bonus track, but I haven't heard that version yet.

Check out Bootledz site for more comparisons of all the other boots out there. For the most part, they all used older tapes or had bad editing jobs.

[chef free]

I still have not heard a CD of this show that sounds "better" that my original For Badge Holders Only records. And I have four different versions of the CDs.

[Dallas Knebs]

I have a vinyl of the show

... Will check to see if it is complete. As I recall it sounds fantastic.

[DavidZoso]

The best version is the multitrack tapes that Jimmy has of the show as I do believe anytime they were in a city for more shows than 2- he had to have rented a mobile truck- IMO.

[tmtomh]

Another vote for the Scorpio. Probably some slight advantage to a really good needle drop of the vinyl for the first few songs, but the Scorpio is the best-sounding, most complete, best-edited-together, one-stop-shop version IMHO.

[cookieshoes]

As much as I would loooooove for this to be the case, I think we can be pretty sure that they didn't multi-track anything from 1977.

They were only running the standard soundboard recording setup at all 1977 shows ("Reference Tapes", as Page has called them). Had they been running multi-tracks, the giveaway would've been extra mics on the kick and overheads of the drum kit. These can be seen at every other show that they ever had professionally recorded, save maybe for Bath, which nobody really knows whether that was really professionally recorded with multitracks or just a sounboard. LA 72, NY 73, EC 75, Knebworth 79...all have the extra mics on the drums. None of the photos from any of the 1977 gigs show any extra mics on the drums or in front of the amps.

Who knows, maybe they planned to do a proper set of multi-tracked shows later in 1977, had they not had to cancel the rest of the year due to Plant's family emergency. But consider that they didn't have any multi-tracks for US 1973 except for the Song Remains the Same, and for 1975 they only did Earl's Court. And both of those years saw the band play in a few cities where they had multiple-night stands.

On the positive side, the soundboard for 6/23/77 definitely exists, as a recording of the noise guitar solo was given by Page to one of the stage crew guys for Knebworth to help him cue up the lighting effects. That snippet has since been circulated and put on the Wendy bootleg, so we at least have proof that the recording does exist. It's also kind of a cool thing to see that show be the one that Page picked the solo from, since it probably means that he recognized even back in 1979 just how good the show was, and that it was probably a gig he listened to.

The best version is the multitrack tapes that Jimmy has of the show as I do believe anytime they were in a city for more shows than 2- he had to have rented a mobile truck- IMO.