Bootleg/live recordings

[bwf]

Like a lot of the posters and viewers here, I am a huge led zeppelin fan.  I am the youngest of my family and a bit too young to have seen them live.  But the thing that keeps the flame alive, for me, is the quantity and quality of the live recordings/bootlegs out there.  I remember getting cd bootlegs from a local record store in the early 90s.  It's great that technology has allowed it so that some of them could be cleaned up.  It also amazes me that something like Chicago 75 could just pop up out of nowhere.  Unfortunately, we have probably seen the end of any real activity from the living members.  My question is this.  Back in the day, it was reported that the band actively fought bootlegger.  Peter Grant was very protective of the band and the money.  The bootlegs seem to come out, in some cases like Blueberry Hill, not long after they were performed.  Do you really think the band was looking to stop this?  In hindsight, it seems like a brilliant move to have them around since the live shows and recordings keep everything fresh and offers so many different looks at the band after the studio catalog.  Just a thought.  Without them, I am sure we would have much to talk about or look forward too.  

[Zep Hed]

My take is that Peter and his team did all they could to fight the release of unauthorized recordings during the band's existence. Following the band's demise, the 80's weren't particularly active but from the late 80's the live shows started to proliferate. By this time, Peter's involvement with the band's affairs had diminished and I think after Jimmy's home was pilfered, he pretty much threw his hands up when so much product flooded the market. I think Jimmy and the group certainly would've preferred otherwise in terms of controlling the material released to the public, but in hindsight I agree with the notion that the 200-odd shows that are out there have enhanced the public's appetite for Zeppelin. They're essentially two different bands - studio and live - equally great in their own right. That being said, I also think the volume - and in many cases high quality - of available unauthorized recordings has diminished Jimmy's motivation to release more material officially. I don't think the level of violation he must've felt - and may feel for as long as he lives - over the release of his life's work out of his control can be underestimated.

[Strider]

Maybe in the early days and Peter and co. seemed to be more interested in thwarting the local yokels in the U.K. How else to explain that there were at least six different tapers at the September 1970 L.A. Forum concert and gobs of tapers at the band's 1971 Japanese shows? Doesn't seem like Peter and Richard were too concerned at that point. Yeah, that story about Peter smashing the poor Scientific Pollution Society guy's machine in Vancouver in 1971 makes for a nice bit of mystique but by 1975 even Robert Plant was joking about bootleggers on stage.

[SteveZ98]

From the time they started in 1968 until The Song Remains The Same was released in 1976, there were no official live releases from the band, even though they had recorded a number of shows (Royal Albert Hall 1970, Japan 1971, the 1972 California shows that became HTWWW, etc.) Bootleggers helped fill that gap for an audience who was hungry to hear live Zep at home, and while the band may not have approved of them, they would have understood that bootlegs helped grow the legend of the band.

Also, it would have been nearly impossible to stop people from recording shows without taking extreme (and expensive) measures that were not common at concerts back then. There were no metal detectors at the venues, and thoroughly hand checking everyone at a show would have taken too long at a sold out hockey arena or football stadium. The band could also have hired lawyers or detectives to track down Dub and Ken and the other people who were creating bootleg LPs (if you're interested in the history of bootlegs, check out "Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry" by Clinton Heylin), but that would have been costly and wouldn't have stopped the flow, just slowed it down for a while. 

[The Only Way To Fly]

It had to be a pretty cool feeling for a teenager to seek out and obtain something like a bootleg in the early 1970's. In the 1980's, when and where I got mine they were really common place. Could only imagine what it was like in 1970-something to go to the record/head shop and get a new Zeppelin LP and then tell the tale to your friends. 

 

 

[HollywoodBowl1998]

With all of the high quality soundboards out there, I do feel their roadies were in on it. Likely behind the bands back as they could score more money this way. Even Robert joked in one concert that without the road crew, they'd probably be ok, they'd just find someone else anyway. So I'm sure they weren't being paid a ton.

Part of me does wonder if Zep secretly wanted to turn a blind eye to it. I've also read the lore on how Grant was fiercely against bootleggers. But if that's the case, how did so many soundboards get out there? I mean, don't you actually have to tap into the electronic system to record a soundboard? And there are so many of them. Soundboards would seem to me to be the easiest thing to stop as compared to 50-70 thousand fans.

[SteveZ98]

1 hour ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

...how did so many soundboards get out there? I mean, don't you actually have to tap into the electronic system to record a soundboard? And there are so many of them. Soundboards would seem to me to be the easiest thing to stop as compared to 50-70 thousand fans.

The vast majority of the soundboards that have been released publicly came out decades after the band broke up, so I don't think the roadies were responsible or they would have come out much sooner. Also, the people who worked the soundboard for the majority of Zep's shows for which soundboards have been released were from Showco, an industry leader in live sound production. They worked for tons of big bands besides Zep and if they were found to be leaking soundboards their business would have suffered quite a bit, so they had no incentive to make a few extra bucks releasing those recordings. 

[HollywoodBowl1998]

13 minutes ago, SteveZ98 said:

The vast majority of the soundboards that have been released publicly came out decades after the band broke up, so I don't think the roadies were responsible or they would have come out much sooner. Also, the people who worked the soundboard for the majority of Zep's shows for which soundboards have been released were from Showco, an industry leader in live sound production. They worked for tons of big bands besides Zep and if they were found to be leaking soundboards their business would have suffered quite a bit, so they had no incentive to make a few extra bucks releasing those recordings. 

Very interesting info, thanks! And I'll be watching your suggested video on the secret history of Bootlegs. After my Live Compilation project I did (and posted yesterday, shameless plug) I've become fascinated by everything around the idea of bootlegs. It almost as mysterious as the band itself.  The notion of taping a concert with such old equipment (compared to todays technology) and then pressing it into albums and selling and distributing it all, while being illegal is all fascinating to me.

[SteveZ98]

16 minutes ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

I've become fascinated by everything around the idea of bootlegs. It almost as mysterious as the band itself.  The notion of taping a concert with such old equipment (compared to todays technology) and then pressing it into albums and selling and distributing it all, while being illegal is all fascinating to me.

"Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry" by Clinton Heylin is a book. It covers everything you just mentioned, and more.

Edited December 31, 2021 by SteveZ98

[Electrophile]

I think Led Zeppelin, much like other groups/artists at the time, realized that no matter how many signs they put up saying they didn't want the shows recorded, it was going to happen anyway. You'd have to cavity search everyone that came in to make sure no one was sneaking in tapes, microphones, etc., and that just wasn't a thing back then. It's not even a thing today, and the ability to bootleg concerts is considerably easier now. Everyone's got an iPhone or Android stuck in the air during the show, so short of confiscating everyone's cell phones before the concert, people will record segments, if not the whole shebang, that way.