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Led Zeppelin 1980


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3 hours ago, Gabriel Subțitică said:

Does anybody know why he was using that annoying effect?

Bit of a daft question really.

Because he wanted it. 

If the sound engineers had applied an effect to his voice he didn't want, he'd have told them to get rid of it. 

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Yeah, the slap back. Just like the harmonizer started in 77', sometimes it worked, sometimes not. All subjective, but just like Jonesey's 80 keyboard sound and Page's more distorted 80' guitar sound, these things as well seemed rather random.

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1 hour ago, Mithril46 said:

Yeah, the slap back. Just like the harmonizer started in 77', sometimes it worked, sometimes not. All subjective, but just like Jonesey's 80 keyboard sound and Page's more distorted 80' guitar sound, these things as well seemed rather random.

I always thought it was a blend of a trendy sound of the time, and the processing/effects was a way to mask his vocal shortcomings. 

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1 hour ago, porgie66 said:

I always thought it was a blend of a trendy sound of the time, and the processing/effects was a way to mask his vocal shortcomings. 

The harmonizer for sure. It usually kicked in during those big screams on Black Dog and Kashmir. I imagine it fooled people easily live, but the soundboards reveal all.

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Yeah, 80' that tour had some big cracks, and technology still couldn't quite convince. Don't want to get any further, there are other threads detailing all this on the 80' tour. Although Robert's overall singing IMO on the 80' tour was hardly weak, but he was even onstage making comments or cryptic sayings about his weariness about singing some songs. Possibly the effects were used to prop up songs Robert no longer wanted to sing ??? Maybe not, but remember the cocktail lounge versions of SIBLY and unenthusiastic renderings of Stairway.

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4 hours ago, Mithril46 said:

Yeah, 80' that tour had some big cracks, and technology still couldn't quite convince. Don't want to get any further, there are other threads detailing all this on the 80' tour. Although Robert's overall singing IMO on the 80' tour was hardly weak, but he was even onstage making comments or cryptic sayings about his weariness about singing some songs. Possibly the effects were used to prop up songs Robert no longer wanted to sing ??? Maybe not, but remember the cocktail lounge versions of SIBLY and unenthusiastic renderings of Stairway.

Robert was pushed into the tour, plain and simple. He did not want to be there. Bonzo was obviously not very into it as well.

As discussed ad nauseum, they should have gone on a multi-year hiatus after Knebworth (the show on the 11th should have convinced them of that), put out solo work, faced and overcome their demons etc. Instead they book a month long European tour no one was really interested in at the time.

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15 minutes ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

Robert was pushed into the tour, plain and simple. He did not want to be there. Bonzo was obviously not very into it as well.

As discussed ad nauseum, they should have gone on a multi-year hiatus after Knebworth (the show on the 11th should have convinced them of that), put out solo work, faced and overcome their demons etc. Instead they book a month long European tour no one was really interested in at the time.

That post strongly suggests you are merely a casual fan. The band had gone on artistic hiatus for nearly 18 months following the loss of Karac. Everything they themselves said about the tour, is positive. The tour itself was completely sold out.  

 

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6 hours ago, SteveAJones said:

That post strongly suggests you are merely a casual fan. The band had gone on artistic hiatus for nearly 18 months following the loss of Karac. Everything they themselves said about the tour, is positive. The tour itself was completely sold out.  

 

If you say so Steve. Of course they were off for 18 months 77'-79' but that's not the point. The point is they were running out of creative steam and two band members were addicts.

Regarding what the band themselves thought of the tour, I thought it was a 50 / 50 split. Jones & Page looking at it as a new chapter and Bonham & Plant just wanting to be done with it. Shit, you can hear it in Robert's voice, in what he says at several gigs. He was pulling a Keith Relf 68' but instead of getting shitfaced and farting into the mike ala Relf he took the passive-aggressive route instead.

Plant was talked into the tour kinda like an old girlfriend begging her ex to give her one more shot. Then two weeks in and you know why you dumped her ass in the first place.

Edited by PeaceFrogYum
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33 minutes ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

If you say so Steve. Of course they were off for 18 months 77'-79' but that's not the point. The point is they were running out of creative steam and two band members were addicts.

Regarding what the band themselves thought of the tour, I thought it was a 50 / 50 split. Jones & Page looking at it as a new chapter and Bonham & Plant just wanting to be done with it. Shit, you can hear it in Robert's voice, in what he says at several gigs. He was pulling a Keith Relf 68' but instead of getting shitfaced and farting into the mike ala Relf he took the passive-aggressive route instead.

Plant was talked into the tour kinda like an old girlfriend begging her ex to give her one more shot. Then two weeks in and you know why you dumped her ass in the first place.

Agreed . Would love to hear him " Dig Deep" on that topic. Maybe he did and I missed it. 

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1 hour ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

If you say so Steve. Of course they were off for 18 months 77'-79' but that's not the point. The point is they were running out of creative steam and two band members were addicts.

Regarding what the band themselves thought of the tour, I thought it was a 50 / 50 split. Jones & Page looking at it as a new chapter and Bonham & Plant just wanting to be done with it. Shit, you can hear it in Robert's voice, in what he says at several gigs. He was pulling a Keith Relf 68' but instead of getting shitfaced and farting into the mike ala Relf he took the passive-aggressive route instead.

Plant was talked into the tour kinda like an old girlfriend begging her ex to give her one more shot. Then two weeks in and you know why you dumped her ass in the first place.

"Overall, we're dead chuffed with the way this tour has gone". That's a fairly well-known Bonham quote from Summer 1980. The tour was not well covered at all by the press though, leaving fans to fill the information gap at the time and even now, 40 years later.

The Relf/Plant comparison is grossly insulting to Robert. Relf's self-discipline had simply declined after eight years of having done it all. Plant had equally done it all, even more so, but was also a mere three years removed from the most sobering experience of his life. I do know for a fact he was bored shitless (offstage) while in Mannheim, and elected to leave early for Munich, but that's life on the road isn't it? You can get bored and restless. I personally don't hear him phoning it in onstage during that tour. I do think they did themselves a disservice by not incorporating material from Presence into the setlist.      

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I don’t personally buy the “ Plant phoning it in” story line. Listen to his efforts in Zurich, Frankfurt, his comments in Brussels, Munich, dude was having fun.  Sometimes the audiences were difficult, or the venue lame, but on the balance Robert was engaged.  

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3 hours ago, bluecongo said:

I don’t personally buy the “ Plant phoning it in” story line. Listen to his efforts in Zurich, Frankfurt, his comments in Brussels, Munich, dude was having fun.  Sometimes the audiences were difficult, or the venue lame, but on the balance Robert was engaged.  

Who said Plant was "phoning it in?" Plant was professional insofar as most of the setlist was concerned but the lounge act renditions of STH show he was bored as do his stage comments. Yes, he was more professional in his approach then Relf but what I am saying is they were both coming from the same place by that time.

The Bonzo quote was either in jest, exhaustion, or due to his addictions as if he truly felt this way, you would never know it by his incredibly uninspired drumming throughout the tour.

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Judging by the 1980 bootlegs, they had some very good (great?) shows and some not so good. Makes me think that if they hadn´t gotten back into it, maybe they never had. Robert was maybe ready to something else too, but they may have felt like they needed to tie up some loose ends. So to speak...

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2 hours ago, Mikelangelo said:

Judging by the 1980 bootlegs, they had some very good (great?) shows and some not so good. Makes me think that if they hadn´t gotten back into it, maybe they never had. Robert was maybe ready to something else too, but they may have felt like they needed to tie up some loose ends. So to speak...

The loose ends they should have been concerned with were addressing Jimmy's, Bonzo's, & Grant's addictions first and foremost.

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On 3/21/2020 at 12:43 AM, PeaceFrogYum said:

Who said Plant was "phoning it in?" Plant was professional insofar as most of the setlist was concerned but the lounge act renditions of STH show he was bored as do his stage comments. Yes, he was more professional in his approach then Relf but what I am saying is they were both coming from the same place by that time.

The Bonzo quote was either in jest, exhaustion, or due to his addictions as if he truly felt this way, you would never know it by his incredibly uninspired drumming throughout the tour.

So lets not take John Bonham's commentary at the time as genuine insight into how he (they) felt about that tour, let's take YOUR word for it 40 years later.

You are hopeless.

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On 3/19/2020 at 6:29 PM, SteveAJones said:

The tour itself was completely sold out.  

Of course, it was Led Zeppelin! 

2 hours ago, PeaceFrogYum said:

The loose ends they should have been concerned with were addressing Jimmy's, Bonzo's, & Grant's addictions first and foremost.

Addiction issues are well documented and anyone who focuses on that is just copying & pasting ad nauseum.  Thank you, it's been covered. We know. For anyone who has a true interest in knowing what led zeppelin was about, just listen to the tapes without caveats. Every recording is essential listening. A lot of people only want to listen to the band "at their best". If one want's a true 3 dimensional view of the band, listen to everything, the good, the bad & the ugly, including and especially 1980. This unique tour is their last chapter, and crucial to the story of this band.

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On 3/24/2020 at 1:50 PM, Silverseas said:

Being “sold out” means nothing less your counting ticket sales.

Read things within the context in which they are stated. PukeFromYum insisted no one was interested in the tour. I emphasized the tour was sold out.

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On 3/20/2020 at 2:29 AM, SteveAJones said:

"Overall, we're dead chuffed with the way this tour has gone". That's a fairly well-known Bonham quote from Summer 1980. The tour was not well covered at all by the press though, leaving fans to fill the information gap at the time and even now, 40 years later.

The Relf/Plant comparison is grossly insulting to Robert. Relf's self-discipline had simply declined after eight years of having done it all. Plant had equally done it all, even more so, but was also a mere three years removed from the most sobering experience of his life. I do know for a fact he was bored shitless (offstage) while in Mannheim, and elected to leave early for Munich, but that's life on the road isn't it? You can get bored and restless. I personally don't hear him phoning it in onstage during that tour. I do think they did themselves a disservice by not incorporating material from Presence into the setlist.      

So agree Steve. I love some of the 80's shows but the setlists were strange. Rain Song seemed out of place and the WS/BMS intro to Kashmir did not fit in the early 80's. I would have loved to hear more Presence or songs ever played before.

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I probably will  piss people off but that 80' tour, sorry but that's not really Led Zeppelin as I knew it. They tried to adapt to a really changed music atmosphere with punk and new wave slowly pushing out the jamming and "show off" musicianship

of many bands of the 70's. But the enormous problem( or attempted approach) of playing shorter songs with far more energy was mostly unsuccessful. Jones was fine, Plant excellent at quite a few points, but Bonham and Page, Bonham probably more so, just didn't have the stamina or ability to summon THE HAMMER OF THE GODS. As freewheeling as the 77' tour was, the band could still play great, although below par shows were becoming too frequent. Certainly some 80' shows were pretty good , and Page played some really wild stuff on the solos for Trampled. I understand that someone mentioned well the 80' tour is part of the band's story, yes, but the band very early tours, there was plenty of punk energy

to go around, Of course high musicianship and slightly bluesy part of the picture. But I never really heard any of that energy on that 80' tour. Actually the 7/24 Copenhagen 79' show has some of that , funny enough. The band should have gone on hiatus, after ?? or before Knebworth. After Page and Bonham got cleaned up, then venture out again. Actually not sure if that would have worked. I'm a 80' shunner, but not a hater. It just sounds SO different than any other difference between

other Zep tours, at least in a downhill spiral way. Although the 80' tour was a bit more consistent than 77', but that's not saying much......

 

 

 

 

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The '80's boots listened to as a whole show are just so much harder than even a good '77 full show. A lot has been said, so I'll only offer the idea that Jimmy's personal challenges shall we say were more evident in the set list decisions than his playing (and they definitely were evident there as well). So Plant wanted to cut the waffle. I still think Jimmy was too distracted to really build a good setlist that flowed and offered something new given Plant's stated parameters for a tour. Why not revisit tracks not played live (or almost never played live)? There are plenty of shorter (no waffle) gems to choose from. And it could still be done with a forward looking mindset.

There are diamonds from 1980. Some are as bright as anything else. But these are generally single tracks on a particular show. Even the best overall 1980 show has significant challenges listening to it as a whole show. It just did not flow as well as other tours.

I am not a hater of the 1980 period. Badgeholder Still makes a GREAT point. It is still an important part of the story. I am glad it is there for those fantastic diamonds! Some of those tracks I play to death.

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I have often wondered how they would have  been received in the US 1980 tour.  Clearly the US audience was starved for Zeppelin and fully engaged and ready to go with the huge success of In Through the Out Door.  There would have been alot of casual fans, even brand new fans, at the 1980 shows.  I was a senior in college and it would have been only my second Zeppelin show.  


First off, the new look fit right in with the times perfectly.  No one would have batted an eyelash.


Next, alot of the fans would have thought it strange that they opened with "that Aerosmith song".   Back then alot of people did not pay close attention and probably still thought that Train Kept a Rollin was written by Aerosmith, and had never even heard of the Yardbirds.


What about the rest of the set list (assuming no changes from the Over Europe tour)? Certainly the inclusion of the three Out Door tracks would have been big (it is easy today to forget how very popular that album was in 1979-80), and the stripped down approach fit right in with the times.  If they played reasonably well and the sound was huge most every flaw we hear today would have not been noticed by fans.  Of course the "hipster" critics would have slagged everything but the typical concert goer would not have cared.


Nobody's Fault - a huge favorite on the 77 tour - would have killed.
Black Dog - nostalgia with an old radio hit always goes over especially with an audience starved for Zeppelin
In the Evening - hugely popular from the new album
Rain Song - hugely popular from the movie that was at that time still a "thing"
Hot Dog - fun, peppy, and had really caught on via the radio.  Would have gone over very, very big in the US at that time.  Remember - this was when country first became "cool" with things like John Travolta in Urban Cowboy, released June 1980.  Oh yeah, and the biggest thing on TV was "Dallas".  I was just listening to the Hot Dog from June 24, 1980 (Winston remaster) and they are all killing it, especially Jimmy.  The guitar sounds amazing.  US crowds would have been delirious. I had forgotten how great this version is.  If Jimmy or Robert wore a cowboy hat during this the US crowds would have lost it.
All My Love - hugely popular with all including  new and casual fans
Trampled Underfoot - funky, tight, would have pumped up the crowd
Since I've Been Loving You - tired, worn out and may have been a downer
Achilles - would have killed like it did in 1977
White Summer/Black Mountainside - tired and worn out, played so badly that even American audiences would have grown bored and restless.  This track was the worst travesty of the tour.   
Kashmir - audiences would have gone bonkers for this as they did in 77
Stairway - see Kashmir above.  Would have blown the roof off the arena.
Rock and Roll - nostalgia magic and no one would have noticed the flaws because it follows Stairway
 Whole Lotta Love - depends on what version they played.  Short and sweet - a fitting end to the show.  Berlin version - many casual fans would have grown restless.  Knebworth version - I can't really say but plenty of people would have enjoyed it if played well.
 

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