Feb 14, 1975 Nassau - TDOLZ

[Christopher Lees]

I was slow to warm up to the 1975 tour for a number of reasons, but when I got Nassau Feb 14, 1975 from The Diagrams of Led Zeppelin, I was converted! This is my favorite recording of the show. It's an audience recording where the bass, especially the bass pedals on Jone's keyboard, sometimes badly overload the recording, but aside from that, it's just great. I've heard the soundboard recordings of this show and they just don't do the trick imho. Soundboards can be a little dry and they take away some of the magic of the show.  This audience recording captures the atmosphere of the shows so warmly. It's amazing. I love Plant's little talk (the famous Plantations) about St. Valentine and about the snow. What a way to set up the show. However, it's the No Quarter solo that really wins the day here. In it's own way, it's every bit as good as TSRTS version, but it only seems to really work in A+ fashion on this particular recording. To my ears, this NQ solo is one of the all time peaks in 75. I also think that the D&C solo is even better than on Feb 12 and the Stairway solo is truly epic. To my Zeppelin friends out there, if you haven't heard TDOLD's version of this show, I highly recommend it and hope that my recommendation brings you some joy.

Have any of you heard this version before and if so, what are your thoughts?

[hummingbird69]

Lest we forget the 13th! No Quarter and Dazed are particularly great.  The aud is a pretty good listen and so is the board, The boards not too bad it captures some of the stereo effects. jones bass is pretty heavy also. The 12th 13th and 14th were a pretty high peek for both of those pieces.

[ZepHead315]

Chris, have you by chance heard the Grame remaster of the soundboard for the 14th? It's a bit heavy on the bass at the start, but it does an excellent job at breathing life into the soundboard, with some good reverb and enhancements on the crowd noise. Sounds like an official release almost. I highly recommend it.

[JohnOsbourne]

44 minutes ago, hummingbird69 said:

Lest we forget the 13th! No Quarter and Dazed are particularly great.  The aud is a pretty good listen and so is the board, The boards not too bad it captures some of the stereo effects. jones bass is pretty heavy also. The 12th 13th and 14th were a pretty high peek for both of those pieces.

Agreed, the 13th is all-time great, probably best show of the first leg.  It gets over-shadowed by the 14th (another truly great show), but the 13th is better.  Plus the wild CB encore with Ronnie Wood!

[Christopher Lees]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:18 PM, hummingbird69 said:

Lest we forget the 13th! No Quarter and Dazed are particularly great.  The aud is a pretty good listen and so is the board, The boards not too bad it captures some of the stereo effects. jones bass is pretty heavy also. The 12th 13th and 14th were a pretty high peek for both of those pieces. 

Hummingbird69, because of your comment, I made special time to listen to the 13th and it was great! I think this show from the 13th is rather unique actually and I'm glad I gave it a good listen. I think it's unique because it's characterized by Jimmy's very sober approach. He wisely played within his grasp and didn't fall on his face trying to overreach, which happened constantly in 75. Jimmy's play here is noticeably measured, restrained, accurate and coherent, but never workman like, uninspired or boring. He played so carefully! There was conspicuous lack of mistakes, a lack of fingers getting stuck in the strings. It's like he was sober as a judge. I don't think I've ever heard him play with that sort of attitude before. Excellent show.

[rm2551]

2 hours ago, Christopher Lees said:

Hummingbird69, because of your comment, I made special time to listen to the 13th and it was great! I think this show from the 13th is rather unique actually and I'm glad I gave it a good listen. I think it's unique because it's characterized by Jimmy's very sober approach. He wisely played within his grasp and didn't fall on his face trying to overreach, which happened constantly in 75. Jimmy's play here is noticeably measured, restrained, accurate and coherent, but never workman like, uninspired or boring. He played so carefully! There was conspicuous lack of mistakes, a lack of fingers getting stuck in the strings. It's like he was sober as a judge. I don't think I've ever heard him play with that sort of attitude before. Excellent show.

The Aud or SB? The audience does mask some things, this show is no different. The Audience gives a much better concert feel at the price of muddyness. The Soundboard is clear as but also dry as. Even though the soundboard lays bare every note and flub, I much prefer that.

[Christopher Lees]

14 hours ago, rm2551 said:

The Aud or SB? The audience does mask some things, this show is no different. The Audience gives a much better concert feel at the price of muddyness. The Soundboard is clear as but also dry as. Even though the soundboard lays bare every note and flub, I much prefer that.

It was a SB. This was the version.

I forgot to mention it was a soundboard but that's what makes it especially amazing. I'm not really a fan of soundboards because they sound so flat and dry, terrible most of the time, and they make Jimmy sound like utter crap. But on this SB, Jimmy sounds great! Again, it has to do with his wise and extremely sober approach to the show. I haven't listened to the audience recording yet. I like really good audience recordings best, far better than soundboard. The natural echo and reverb of the room (some rooms) make for a great listening experience, especially when contrasted with unbalanced, dry, no-effects soundboard recordings that do nothing but highlight the slop.