Ranking the 1971 shows

[goldenretreiver157]

What are 10 shows that stand out, besides japan 1971? 

[duckman]

• Berkeley 9/14 ; I haven't heard the first night, but in the early 70's  'Going To California' was a perfect live album; Heartbreaker is one of the best renditions.
• Boston, really cooking and aggressive performance: Killing Floor and Communication Breakdown, stand out.
• Ft.Worth; another incomplete tape, but this another great performance, especially for Percy.
• Orlando; probably the best of the N.American soundboards. Only 110 minutes were captured from the mixing desk and there are some annoying gaps, but this is a perfect introduction.
• Copenhagen, May...Fantastic performance incl. rare live versions of Four Sticks and Gallows Pole.
• Ipswitch. One of the landmark British shows during the fall.

 

OK That's only six shows, but I'm sure some Zep heads with better bootleg ears, will throw in some more for good measure. 

[Strider]

Apart from the 1971 Japanese shows, the ten I would recommend:

1. August 31, 1971 Orlando. A killer performance and Jimmy is really feeling frisky, spontaneously improvising licks and intros in between songs. The lead-up to "Celebration Day" is pure swagger. It's also the best sounding soundboard apart from Japan. Yes, it has gaps but combined with the listenable audience tape, you get the complete show in it's glory. Which gives it a leg up on September 14. I wonder if that guy came back for his wallet?

2. September 14, 1971 Berkeley. Unlike the previous year where Led Zeppelin played the cavernous Oakland Coliseum, in 1971 they played the much more intimate and acoustically superior Berkeley Community Theatre. And it shows on the fantastic audience tape. The tape starts off in good mono but once the taper realizes his mistake and switches the recorder to stereo in "Heartbreaker", the sound suddenly explodes in wide-screen splendour. Thanks to the paranoia of the taper we don't have the complete show. But we have enough of it to tell it was an amazing night. The tape was used for the legendary "Going to California" vinyl bootleg. This release, along with "Live on Blueberry Hill", fueled the Led Zeppelin bootleg market and boosted Led Zeppelin's live reputation. Some great Plantations, too.

3. May 3, 1971 Copenhagen. Not a great audience tape...you'll need "bootleg ears". But the rarities in the setlist (the only "FOUR STICKS" in existence!) make it an essential show to have in the same way 9.19.70 is essential.

4. April 1, 1971 Paris Theatre, BBC. Because it was professionally recorded and broadcast over FM radio, this is the best sounding 1971 show we have so far. Yes it has been officially released as part of the BBC Sessions but it has been edited and chopped. A bootleg is the way to go for the complete concert.

5. September 13, 1971 Berkeley. Not as good an audience tape as 9.14.71 but it is more complete and the performance is a dandy.

6. September 4, 1971 Toronto. One of the first 1971 soundboards to appear. Incomplete, of course. But there's a nice soundboard/audience tape merge that is almost the complete show. "Celebration Day" is a standout, as it usually was in 1971.

7. August 21-22, 1971 L.A. Forum. Yes, I am treating the two Forum shows as one entry. L.A. was the opening stand of the 1971 American tour. No soundboards have surfaced as of yet, unfortunately. Night two in L.A. features a surprise opening of The Venture's "Walk Don't Run" leading into "Immigrant Song". Another great night at the Forum for Led Zeppelin, who obviously enjoyed playing in L.A.

8. September 3, 1971 Madison Square Garden, NYC. Yes, you have to put up with Artie and his chit chat. But the band is cooking and the crowd is being driven crazy. In fact, the atmosphere gets so crazed and electric that the audience storms the stage during "Thank You", causing it  to collapse. You can hear the chaos on the tape. 

9. September 9, 1971 Boston Garden. September 1971 was one of those months where Led Zeppelin could do no wrong. That's why I have so many September gigs on my list. They simply were a juggernaut and taking no prisoners this month.

10. March 5, 1971 Belfast. Simply for the historical reason that this is the first public performance of "Stairway to Heaven", "Going to California", "Rock and Roll", and "Black Dog".

Edited September 4, 2020 by Strider

[JohnOsbourne]

Good topic, love the September NA shows in particular.  The Japanese shows of course lives up to their reputation, and the UK shows at the end of the year tend to get overlooked.  Orlando and Toronto are justifiably well-known because of the sound quality, and despite the lesser sound quality, Boston and NY are killer.  But how can we forget Hampton?  That is a powerful show.

[Strider]

6 hours ago, JohnOsbourne said:

Good topic, love the September NA shows in particular.  The Japanese shows of course lives up to their reputation, and the UK shows at the end of the year tend to get overlooked.  Orlando and Toronto are justifiably well-known because of the sound quality, and despite the lesser sound quality, Boston and NY are killer.  But how can we forget Hampton?  That is a powerful show.

Powerful, yes, but woefully incomplete. Missing "Whole Lotta Love" and the encores sinks it below the top 10 in my opinion. Plus, the soundboard is overloaded on bass and sounds muddy and dull compared to the other 1971 soundboards.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Strider

[bluecongo]

Honestly I’ve yet to hear a substandard 1971 show, they were peaking hard, I don’t know how you’ll manage to rank these.

 

 

[badgeholder]

1 hour ago, bluecongo said:

Honestly I’ve yet to hear a substandard 1971 show, they were peaking hard, I don’t know how you’ll manage to rank these.

 

 

Agree. Same with 1970, every show is a killer

[Jukkin]

Discovered I don't have that many 1971 shows but a couple I would add is 1971-11-25, Leicester, 'Best For Hard 'n' Heavy' [EVSD] and 1971-09-09 - Hampton, 'High Heeled Sneakers [Godfather]. These are a couple of the releases I have and both are pretty good to say the least.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Jukkin

[Tainted cheese]

I could come up 10 easily, but they are all mentioned many times already above. I would only add that the '71 LA Forum shows are exceptional, outstanding, and in my opinion the best of the 1971 tour, minus a few from Japan, . . . oh how I wish another better sounding source would pop out of the ground soon. The singing, Page's playing, the medleys are first rate, and Bonham's drums sound absolutley thunderous in the sources we already have. That's all I have to say about that . . .

[Bonzo_fan]

My podcast episode ranking the 1971 North American shows came out a few days ago if you still need help with this, OP:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/rock-talk-with-dr-cropper/id1518703647?i=1000491553234

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5FUEwa4XKcNUuTpU8QxfJj?si=XnYUFy6OQI2GquIEUZuj-w

Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xMTE5MjU0LnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC01NDcwMjQz?sa=X&ved=0CAQQkfYCahcKEwiI5YPSoIDsAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBQ

[1975NQ]

On 9/10/2020 at 4:01 PM, Jukkin said:

Discovered I don't have that many 1971 shows but a couple I would add is 1971-11-25, Leicester, 'Best For Hard 'n' Heavy' [EVSD] and 1971-09-09 - Hampton, 'High Heeled Sneakers [Godfather]. These are a couple of the releases I have and both are pretty good to say the least.

11-25-71 is one of my fav Zep shows. Super underrated. Plant sounds amazing and even though he holds back at the beginning, the whole show is incredible. Some of my fav versions of Celebration Day, GTC, STH, D+C and CB are from this show. I would list all of those as top 5 versions. Other favs from 71 are 8/21, Belfast and Copenhagen.

[SuperDave]

On 9/4/2020 at 2:24 PM, Strider said:

Powerful, yes, but woefully incomplete. Missing "Whole Lotta Love" and the encores sinks it below the top 10 in my opinion. Plus, the soundboard is overloaded on bass and sounds muddy and dull compared to the other 1971 soundboards.

That's how I've always felt about the Hampton show. It needs a good remix by SteveZ98 who has done a good job with some of these shows.

[Strider]

I need to reacquaint myself with the 1971 Winter UK tour of November-December. I have the earlier UK/Euro, U.S. and Japanese tours of 1971 firmly in mind, but the last tour of 1971 is a bit hazy.

[Walter]

8 minutes ago, Strider said:

I need to reacquaint myself with the 1971 Winter UK tour of November-December. I have the earlier UK/Euro, U.S. and Japanese tours of 1971 firmly in mind, but the last tour of 1971 is a bit hazy.

Honestly I’ve never heard a show from that tour. Maybe a 50th anniversary tour of the tour is in order? I haven’t been listening to much live Zep lately…

[Strider]

6 minutes ago, Walter said:

Honestly I’ve never heard a show from that tour. Maybe a 50th anniversary tour of the tour is in order? I haven’t been listening to much live Zep lately…

Not even the Electric Magic show from the Empire Pool at Wembley?

[Walter]

33 minutes ago, Strider said:

Not even the Electric Magic show from the Empire Pool at Wembley?

nope.

[1975NQ]

Ipswitch and Manchester get all the love for that tour, what with Robert being in great voice both nights and Ipswitch being the best recorded. But I really love the Leicester show. It builds slowly and really opens up during and after the acoustic set. It just has a great vibe to it, and the band is absolutely killing it. Jimmy tears it up on Dazed and CB, even more than usual for 71 (to my ears anyway). But you really can't go wrong with any of those shows. I like them better than both Japan and US tour.

Edited October 15, 2021 by 1975NQ

[Zep Hed]

The 71 UK Winter tour also featured the brief appearance of Theme From Shaft during Dazed. Back to back nights Manchester and Leicester. That alone should bring a smile to any listener's face. 😊

[1975NQ]

Bad Muthaf---ers 😛 (Leicester boot)

[nick2632]

So terrible answer overall, but I'm going to throw out the famous April 1, 1971 show at the Paris Cinema Theatre in London even though anyone has listened to this on the BBC Sessions album. 

However, if you have never listened to a bootleg copy of this show, then I strongly recommend doing so because there is just something about at least the Empress Valley release of this show that I find to be much better than the official release. The Plantations are great, and I hate to say this especially after getting a remastered version of it, but I find this unofficial mix of it to be significantly better overall. Everything is almost as clear, but with the bass at a normal level it just sounds more natural and the guitar and keyboards are isolated in each channel. I have always had a very difficult time making it all the way through disc 2 of the BBC Sessions, but never have that problem listening to this full show. Stairway To Heaven sounds absolutely beautiful here, which is something I never thought after listening to the official release. Also something about it is that when listening to the bootleg version of the show I find it really captures the atmosphere of the show and you really feel like you are sitting in that small crowd, but on the official release it pretty much feels like you are listening to music that was recorded in a studio with no audience, hell even the 2 seconds of audience at the end of each track sounds like it was just copied and pasted to the end of each song lol.

[Xolo1974]

4 hours ago, nick2632 said:

So terrible answer overall, but I'm going to throw out the famous April 1, 1971 show at the Paris Cinema Theatre in London even though anyone has listened to this on the BBC Sessions album. 

However, if you have never listened to a bootleg copy of this show, then I strongly recommend doing so because there is just something about at least the Empress Valley release of this show that I find to be much better than the official release. The Plantations are great, and I hate to say this especially after getting a remastered version of it, but I find this unofficial mix of it to be significantly better overall. Everything is almost as clear, but with the bass at a normal level it just sounds more natural and the guitar and keyboards are isolated in each channel. I have always had a very difficult time making it all the way through disc 2 of the BBC Sessions, but never have that problem listening to this full show. Stairway To Heaven sounds absolutely beautiful here, which is something I never thought after listening to the official release. Also something about it is that when listening to the bootleg version of the show I find it really captures the atmosphere of the show and you really feel like you are sitting in that small crowd, but on the official release it pretty much feels like you are listening to music that was recorded in a studio with no audience, hell even the 2 seconds of audience at the end of each track sounds like it was just copied and pasted to the end of each song lol.

Plus the unofficial release doesn’t cut out any of the songs e.g WLL

[Bonzo_fan]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:31 PM, Strider said:

I need to reacquaint myself with the 1971 Winter UK tour of November-December. I have the earlier UK/Euro, U.S. and Japanese tours of 1971 firmly in mind, but the last tour of 1971 is a bit hazy.

I'm in the same boat. I think the only one I've heard is 11/16 Ipswich 🤔

On 10/14/2021 at 7:41 PM, Walter said:

Honestly I’ve never heard a show from that tour. Maybe a 50th anniversary tour of the tour is in order? I haven’t been listening to much live Zep lately…

I'll be doing that as well -- and covering it on my podcast to report my findings! 🧐

Speaking of which, this seems as relevant a place as any to drop this...

I had the pleasure of being joined by @ledzepfilm on my show this week to discuss Japan '71 for the 50th anniversary: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1119254/9385762

[Walter]

On 10/18/2021 at 5:57 PM, Bonzo_fan said:

I'm in the same boat. I think the only one I've heard is 11/16 Ipswich 🤔

I'll be doing that as well -- and covering it on my podcast to report my findings! 🧐

Speaking of which, this seems as relevant a place as any to drop this...

I had the pleasure of being joined by @ledzepfilm on my show this week to discuss Japan '71 for the 50th anniversary: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1119254/9385762

Nice! I’ll have to check it out. Thanks! 🤘🏼

[Walter]

First time hearing this show…opener from the 71 fall tour of the UK. Newcastle 11/11/71. Three songs in and good sound/playing. Black Dog was a little rough early on. Special thanks to Led Zeppelin Boots! 🤘🏼
 

 

Edit to say…that’s one of the best Stairway To Heaven versions ever! Good job lads! 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Walter

[Strider]

On 10/14/2021 at 8:00 PM, Zep Hed said:

The 71 UK Winter tour also featured the brief appearance of Theme From Shaft during Dazed. Back to back nights Manchester and Leicester. That alone should bring a smile to any listener's face. 😊

THAT is one of the cool things about the tour I do remember from listening to the bootlegs. It is just a shame that there are no real good quality tapes from this tour…not even the Electric Magic show. Nothing of the quality of Orlando, Toronto, Berkeley, Tokyo, or Osaka.