f2walsh Posted May 19, 2013 Share Posted May 19, 2013 The Cologne show was an early audience recording I enjoyed prior to the soundboard revolution of the late '80s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NealKenneth Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 The 1980s seems to be the decade where record producers and instrument manufacturers all lost their collective minds. Everyone started using those shitty synth drums or drum machines, guitars sounded like crap, everything started getting over-compressed. It was a bad decade for sound. This is a fantastic post! I recently compiled a list of my twenty favorite albums of all time and not a single one was from the 80s. One song a time is fine, but forty-five minutes of that decade's production is just awful. The instruments just don't sound all that pleasant on the soundboards; there's no balls to the sound at all...IMO Page's choices for guitar tone, Plant's harmonizer and some of Jonesy's keyboard sounds seem pretty questionable in retrospect. That story about the band being excited because they figured out how to handle Carouselambra live has always worried me. When I hear those keys in the beginning, I can't help but picture a middle-aged man in faded neon windpants doing jumping jacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sathington Willoughby Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 This is a fantastic post! I recently compiled a list of my twenty favorite albums of all time and not a single one was from the 80s. One song a time is fine, but forty-five minutes of that decade's production is just awful. That story about the band being excited because they figured out how to handle Carouselambra live has always worried me. When I hear those keys in the beginning, I can't help but picture a middle-aged man in faded neon windpants doing jumping jacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy's Dragon Suit Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 The 1980s seems to be the decade where record producers and instrument manufacturers all lost their collective minds. Everyone started using those shitty synth drums or drum machines, guitars sounded like crap, everything started getting over-compressed. It was a bad decade for sound. I cannot stand the 80's and everything about that decade in music except for Van Halen(The Roth Years). 1981's "Fair Warning" does not suffer from overcompression, synth drums or guitars/bass that sound like shite. That is one of the best produced albums of the decade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stairway is NOT stolen Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 anyone have any youtube links to Achilles at Zurich? I can't find any Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy's Dragon Suit Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 anyone have any youtube links to Achilles at Zurich? I can't find any https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwmvlt4dkMQ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy's Dragon Suit Posted January 28, 2015 Share Posted January 28, 2015 Some of my favorite versions of "Since I've Been Loving You" are from the 1980 Tour Over Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walter Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I cannot stand the 80's and everything about that decade in music except for Van Halen(The Roth Years). 1981's "Fair Warning" does not suffer from overcompression, synth drums or guitars/bass that sound like shite. That is one of the best produced albums of the decade. I agree with that! At the end of the 80's "Appetite For Destruction" was a blast of fresh air for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walter Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 Some of my favorite versions of "Since I've Been Loving You" are from the 1980 Tour Over Europe. I don't like the guitar much in those versions, but JPJ's piano really added a nice touch to the song, that had never been there before! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonzo_fan Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I'm sure it was really hard to reproduce it live, but if they could've found a way to include "Fool In The Rain" it would've made the setlist much more intriguing imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NealKenneth Posted January 29, 2015 Share Posted January 29, 2015 I'm sure they could have found a way. After all, they handled Achille's Last Stand mightily with just one guitarist, which seems impossible listening to the studio version. I think the problem wasn't really that they couldn't do it, just that there wasn't enough interest from the band. It would probably take a lot of work to figure out how to, but they didn't care to. It's sorta similar to "D'yer Mak'er" in that way...both successful singles that they never bothered to play live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walter Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Both singles? Not sure what other song you're referring to. ALS wasn't a single coming in at 10:26. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 ^^^ I think he was referring to "Fool In The Rain" (which itself seems long for a single...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walter Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Didn't read that into it, thanks NR! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 ^^^ I think he was referring to "Fool In The Rain" (which itself seems long for a single...) Long it may be but it was a single and quite popular at that. Probably the most-played Led Zeppelin song on commercial Top 40 radio since "D'yer M'ker". "Candy Store Rock" was D.O.A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NealKenneth Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 I was referring to Fool in the Rain and D'yer Mak'er, which were both top 40 singles in the US, yet went unperformed live (unless you count the reggae breakdown during the last encore at Earls Court.) Long it may be but it was a single and quite popular at that. Probably the most-played Led Zeppelin song on commercial Top 40 radio since "D'yer M'ker". "Candy Store Rock" was D.O.A. Zeppelin's strategy for choosing singles was awful. Candy Store Rock and Royal Orleans were probably the worst songs on Presence, yet they sent them out to promote it. This legitimately might have reduced sales of the album. Earlier on, they put out Hey Hey What Can I Do as a b-side yet left it off the album, forever dislocating it from the rest of the discography. How I wish that had been Hat's Off to (Roy) Harper instead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Zeppelin's strategy for choosing singles was awful. Candy Store Rock and Royal Orleans were probably the worst songs on Presence, yet they sent them out to promote it. This legitimately might have reduced sales of the album. Earlier on, they put out Hey Hey What Can I Do as a b-side yet left it off the album, forever dislocating it from the rest of the discography. How I wish that had been Hat's Off to (Roy) Harper instead! Wow, I thought I was the only one who held that view To be fair, I don't think the band themselves chose the singles, that was probably down to some A/R dude at Atlantic who's basic taste was solely in his mouth... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Old Hermit Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Earlier on, they put out Hey Hey What Can I Do as a b-side yet left it off the album, forever dislocating it from the rest of the discography. Not if they'd included it on Physical Graffiti (whch still had room for another track unlike the other preceding albums)... which I'm pretty adamant they should and indeed likely WOULD have had Atlantic not released it both as a B-Side to 'Immigrant Song' and on the Age of Atlantic compilation album, both of which were against the band's wishes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in_the_evening Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 To the OP: You should listen to some of the 1980 recordings because some of the shows are quite good. Blessedly, the 30 minutes of Moby Dick and Dazed are banished. A tighter set, less bloated self indulgence. Like any of the tours, there are some spot on nights, and some "good grief" nights, lol, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Rover Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Personally I really enjoy listening to Brussels, Zurich and Frankfurt for a change of pace. The set list is so different than their previous tours, it's refreshing. IMO. I love Train...going into NFBM. Like the new songs being played, could do without SIBLY and WS. Trampled is fantastic and so was Achillies. If anyone is a Zeppelin fan past "Stairway" and the other radio classics, you've gotta at least check out those shows I mentioned, IMO.Yes, for Train Kept A Rollin' into NFBM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithril46 Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I used to belong to a Zep forum that was ultimately dismantled because the head founder fell ill, and I never found out what happend. Hope he made it. Anyway, in the section reviewing boots, there was a section for all the diff tours. No kidding, the reviewer warned that the 1980 shows could not be recommended fully by him. I myself agree with this, because I have hung out sometimes playing an 80' show And very soon the complaints start in. I just can't stomach the 2 good songs-1 mediocre-2 songs suck, on and on thing. It is not just different, or changing directions, blah, blah. Of course there are some great individual performances, but almost always bookended With weak performances. 1980 was when Zep started to sound entirely mortal, basically an end whether Bonzo lived or died. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Dounim Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Frankfurt and Munich are great performances from beginning to end with real hiccups to speak of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutrocker Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I just can't stomach the 2 good songs-1 mediocre-2 songs suck, on and on thing. I tend to agree...the band (Page in particular, and, to a lesser degree Bonham) just aren't playing to a consistent enough level to sustain an entire performance. Like you say, a few songs will be decent then sure enough somebody blows it somewhere. Mind ya, I've long been of the opinion that given the state of Jimmy's chops in 1980 they had no business playing -to name but three- "Hot Dog", "Since I've Been Loving You" and -especially- "White Summer"; those three tend to be the most iffy/problematic songs in the set list. But the bottom line is IMO none of the 1980 shows rise to the same level of performance the band was capable of even a year earlier. We gave Zurich a listen on Friday night; my missus and I both agreed, "It's hard to believe this is considered one of the best shows of the tour!" It's good, but not great. Trouble is, Led Zeppelin built the reputation as a live band on being great. Having said that, I finally got my copy of Dave Lewis' Feather In The Wind book about the 1980 tour. It's excellent. I appreciate Dave's objectivity...he basically says the same things about the tour that we say here! More than once reading the thing I was thinking, "Jesus, that's like something I'd say, Dave!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Dounim Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Well this tour was never meant to be great, it was just to help build them into being great in America. If I were going on a small scale tour to basically train myself into shape for a large scale tour I wouldn't have allowed any press either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom kid Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Frankfurt and Munich are great performances from beginning to end with real hiccups to speak of. Great performances for 1980, yes. But when viewing the whole of Zeppelin's live career 1980 doesn't really stand up. There are just better versions of almost every song in the set from different tours. SIBLY was often rough as guts, even on the Frankfurt show which is rated highly the guitar sounds pretty darn out of tune. Sadly Jimmy just wasn't up to snuff at this point, sure he was capable of occasionally having moments of greatness within the set but he never consistently played a whole show in 1980 at the standard of say Heartbreaker in Zurich, other parts of that show are nowhere near that level of playing. The same could be said about '77 (my fav tour) but Page was more consistent then imo. White Summer should have been nowhere near the setlist in 1980, its like Jimmy was trying to prove (maybe to himself) that he could still pull it off in the state he was in but sadly he ends up making a meal of it night after night, at least in '77 White Summer was mostly passable and sometimes great. I'll admit I do have a soft spot for the tour, Kashmir from Cologne is one of my favourite versions, and some of the versions of Achilles are great because they aren't at the most likely cocaine induced breakneck pace of '77, Houston is a good example of too much speed being detrimental to the song imo. Overall though you can tell from listening that the band somehow seems tired, Robert isn't as into it, Page is smacked out of his mind and Bonzo is almost going through the motions due to his substance abuse and alcoholism. I've said this before on here, but I believe that the American tour would have been just as inconsistent and sloppy as 'Over Europe 1980'. Jimmy was in terrible shape, as was Bonzo and it pains me to say it but Page might not have come home from the tour alive, all speculation and my opinion of course. /rant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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