Full Live Best of Performance Compilation - Take 2

[HollywoodBowl1998]

This was an effort that was sparked the day of the O2 concert. Zeppelin was going to play a song they’ve never done live before, in any way. Zep fans such as yourself boiled it down to 4 songs, if I recall correctly; when accounting for various reunions etc.  This got me wondering how many different live songs do I have in my catalogue. This led to all kinds of discoveries. One of which is just how many songs were not played live in the Bonham years. I believe we were meant to get more, but the ’75, ’77, and ’80 tours were each cut short due to separate tragedies.  I believe those tours would have transitioned to include more songs, from the latter albums, as those tours would have progressed.  Regardless, of the songs they did perform, I had a poor 2/3, at best. Then I turned to the internet, where I discovered that nearly all of their concerts were available on line, which blew me away. I thought I was going to have to hunt them down in the one record store left in town that might have any bootlegs. I must have been stuck under an internet rock to not have realized what was available this whole time. Regardless, this massive project finally got underway.

I started out tracking down my missing live songs.  With so much available, this turned into finding the best version of those songs.  Then I turned my focus to this project, finding the best version of each live performance they did and make a massive playlist (or mix tape…does anyone else still listen to those?). This morphed into a huge endeavor that grew a life of it’s own and became a massive best of “concert”. While best means something different to each fan here, I tried to focus on sound quality over anything else…which thankfully still leaves a lot! Then I focused on the best version of.

My search also dug up a lot of non-studio songs they only performed live.  I assume they were all covers, like Blueberry Hill, but some I’ve never heard at all.  So I collected those along the way and picked up over 20 songs, which are included in this “concert”.  I like the historical accuracy of including them; because it’s something they did do a lot live.  Not to mention it makes this concert longer.  And who doesn’t want an epically long Zeppelin concert? Well, maybe not the fans at Knebworth (who apparently waited outdoors for a very long time to see all the concerts), but probably the rest of us. Some cover songs I dropped were either poor in quality or I just didn’t like them.  The good covers also increased the song variety and further break up multiple versions of some of their best stuff. I mean, how does one decide that TSRTS Stairway is so much better than the '77 LA Forum Stairways as to cut one over the other? I couldn’t do it, so several versions of a few songs made the cut, as they differ so much.  SIBLY, WLL, CB, HMMT, and Heartbreaker show up a few times, so these ~20 cover tunes keeps it from sounding too repetitive as well.

Because of quality, a lot of the performances below are from the official releases: Olympia, BBC Sessions, HTWWW, TSRTS, and even a few from Celebration Day.  Familiarity of my old CD boots has influenced this as well, so some concerts' songs show up more; I make no apologies, haha. I really want this full, best of “Concert” to be a charge to listen to, from start to end. And in the end it’s just shy of 15 hours! 

When I set out to assemble the set list, I didn’t intend on it being chronological, but it mostly morphed that way. The early stuff just sounds better amongst itself. Ditto that the mid years and then the latter years. There are exceptions throughout, heck, the whole set list starts off in the O2 Arena. But if it’s one thing I’ve learned about Zeppelin is they cannot fit into any one box. There is no rule that defines this band. They were just too creative to make any logistic sense out of them. Which is what makes them the best rock ARTists I’ve ever heard.

One problem,  I found the ‘best’ versions tended to be played in the later years. So there are things that appear out of order, so again, try to no think of this as a chronological set list. Example, in the Set B Dazed melodies The Crunge, which wasn’t even created yet….or was it? Heck, half of Physical Graffiti was made during their early concert touring years, but just didn’t fit other albums, so hopefully this isn’t too painful for ya. But really, this was a function of picking the best of versions and then evenly distributing them amongst the whole; which ended up being 109 songs!

This took me roughly a year to pull off, and even still I didn’t digest all of the material. I covered their well known or best live concerts. I’ve scoured many "best of" posts or recommendations on this Forum. I took feedback from my first cut at this about 6 months ago. I’d also like to give a big shout out to Mike Fry [check out his 50th Anniversary Box Set post as well as many others] who’s done some pretty cool Zep stuff. A solid portion of the tunes below have his finger print on them in one way or another, from song recommendations to having better quality version than I had to even the editing app Audacity. I can definitely say this project would not have been nearly as good without his assistance! This site makes people, literally, across the world become cool Zep allies!

 

I ended up breaking down the 109 song set list into 7 different sets; each set I tried to have listen as a mini concert within the whole massive concert.  This wasn’t easy, and there were many musical struggles along the way. I had to compromise one cool version over another, and had to get creative doing so. To minimize some repeated songs I created B Sides to some songs and combos for others. I tried to edit everything as best I could so one song blends to the next as though you were actually listening to a fluid concert. Hopefully you’ll like a few of the hidden gems I threw in, here and there, along the way. I also took quite a few liberties with WLL that you’ll either like or hate me for. All of this is explained in each set below. Set G is much longer than the others. I couldn’t make it work as separate sets, the flow wasn’t there. So this massive concert suitably finishes off with a massive final set.

 

I’ve referenced where each song comes from.  Most of these songs are from the CD releases or from a dozen of their better overall shows; these are referenced by concert name or CD acronym. The remainder are referenced directly. Hopefully this is easy to follow. Each mini set has a bit of a descriptor of it’s songs.  Enjoy!

 

Set A 
Most of this set is targeted at songs created in 1968-69. Some of the better versions included here were played later on though. And some songs seemed to fit well in Set A too, which happens throughout all of these sets. Again, this wasn't supposed to be chronological, it just mostly ended up this way. Try not to get too fixated on the song year being out of place, otherwise this whole thing might drive you bonkers, haha. I also cut A13 down to mostly just the melodies for two reasons. Firstly, the 'studio' part of WLL was of poor quality, but the melodies were in much better condition…and just sounds cool. Secondly, there is a lot of WLL influence throughout this whole project (no surprise as it influenced nearly all of their concerts) so I didn’t feel too guilty cutting it off, knowing it comes back several times elsewhere.

A1 Good Times Bad Times – Celebration Day
A2 I Can't Quit You Baby – Live At Olympia CD
A3 The Train Kept A Rollin’ – Texas Pop Festival
A4 I Gotta Move – Stockholm March 14, 1969
A5 Sitting And Thinking – Fillmore West
A6 As Long As I Have You - Fillmore West
A7 White Summer/Black Mountain Side – Live At Olympia CD
A8 Killing Floor/Lemon Song – Fillmore West
A9 Pat’s Delight – Fillmore West
A10 The Girl She Got Long Brown Wavy Hair – BBC Sessions CD
A11 Babe I'm Gonna Leave You – Whiskey A Go Go
A12 Your Time Is Gonna Come, WLL excerpt - Tokyo Sep 24, 1971
A13 WLL Melodies - Osaka
A14 You Shook Me – Live At Olympia CD
A15 How Many More Times – Fillmore West
A16 Communication Breakdown – Live On Blueberry Hill

Set B
This set is aiming towards 1970 songs. I didn’t mean for a lot of consecutive concert songs to be presented here together, it sort of happened that way organically. B5,6,7,8 then B12,13, ditto B15,16.  I just started arranging them together and eventually realized they're from the same moment in time. Happy coincidences I guess.

B1 We’re Gonna Groove – Royal Albert Hall
B2 C’mon Everybody – Royal Albert Hall
B3 The Girl Can’t Help It – New York, evening Sept 19, 1970
B4 Something Else – BBC Sessions CD
B5 Out on the Tiles – Live On Blueberry Hill
B6 Bron-Yr-Aur – Live On Blueberry Hill
B7 Since I've Been Loving You – Live On Blueberry Hill
B8 Organ Solo – Live On Blueberry Hill
B9 Thank You – BBC Sessions CD
B10 Ramble On – Celebration Day
B11 What Is and What Should Never Be – BBC Sessions CD
B12 Bring It On Home – HTWWW CD
B13 Dazed and Confused – HTWWW CD
B14 Heartbreaker – Earls Court
B15 Whole Lotta Love – Live on Blueberry Hill
B16 Blueberry Hill – Live On Blueberry Hill

Set C
In this somewhat 1971 set I did another WLL melodies. The first part of WLL HTWWW was very similar to TSRTS and others, so I cut it and focused on the material that was totally new, knowing what was cut would show up it the other sets. I wanted to not have WLL in every set list as to not get too sick of it, or to let it overshadow the play time from the other shorter songs.  Please keep in mind, this thing was 18+ hrs at one point, so some things did have to go.

C1 Immigrant Song – HTWWW CD
C2 Celebration Day – TSRTS CD (original)
C3 Long Tall Sally – Royal Albert Hall
C4 The Lemon Song – Whisky A Go Go
C5 Friends – Osaka September 29, 1971
C6 That's the Way – HTWWW CD
C7 Gallows Pole – Copenhagen May 3, 1971
C8 Four Sticks – Copenhagen May 3,1971
C9 WLL Excerpt – HTWWW CD, Cut ~10 mins, starts w Millionaire
C10 Stairway to Heaven – TSRTS CD (original)
C11 How Many More Times – Texas Pop Festival

Set D
This is sort of a 1972 set that begins to transition into 1973. Note, the some songs were seldom played live, so good sound quality or cool versions don't exist, but to me they are still a must have for this project. D6 is one of those cases. This set has the first B Side song. This only occurs three times in this overall best of ‘concert’. It was a way I could reduce the song repetition, while not entirely throwing a song away.  The idea is, sometimes listen to the overall Concert as shown. Switch it up other times by swapping out D5a with D5b. I’ve edited them to flow with their sets, so you can just slip the B Sides in or out as you please.

D1 Communication Breakdown – BBC CD
D2 Dancing Days – HTWWW CD
D3 Money – Frankfurt June 30, 1980
D4 Louie Louie – HTWWW bootleg LA June 25, 1972
D5a Over the Hills and Far Away – Snow Job
D6 Black Country Woman – Seattle June 19, 1972
D7 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp – Destroyer
D8 Travelling Riverside Blues – BBC Sessions CD
D9 Misty Mountain Hop – TSRTS CD (2007)
D10 Since I've Been Loving You – TSRTS CD (2007)
D11 Stand By Me – Osaka Oct 9 1972
D12 Rock and Roll – HTWWW CD

Set E
The songs I had amalgamated for this set started to eerily look a bit like the 1973 TSRTS, so I went with it. I think E5 is the only real exception, otherwise it somewhat follows the order of the original NYC set list. While D12 finishes off Set D, it helps blend into the start of Set E being the concert opener in ’73. E9 has another B Side. The 1973 WLLs were very good, in my opinion. I just couldn’t delete E9b, but again, had to reduce the WLLs; I had around 10 really good versions at one point. And this was after cutting a bunch.

E1 Black Dog – HTWWW CD
E2 The Song Remains the Same – TSRTS CD (original)
E3 The Rain Song – TSRTS CD (original)
E4 No Quarter – Snow Job
E5 The Crunge – WLL excerpt Dallas Mar 5, 1975
E6 Dazed and Confused – TSRTS CD (original)
E7 Stairway to Heaven – Last Concert
E8 Moby Dick – HTWWW CD
E9A Whole Lotta Love – Detroit July 13, 1973
E10 The Ocean – HTWWW CD
E11 Thank You – NYC July 27, 1973

Set F
This is aimed at songs that were played or existed in some way in 1975 and is attempted to feature Physical Graffiti a bit. F6 and F10 are excellent versions provided by Mike Fry, really cool listens. I added a small touch to F10, hopefully it's not noticed, which would mean I blended it well.

F1 Going to California w Custard Pie interlude – Houston May 21,1977
F2 Trampled Under Foot – Earls Court
F3 In My Time of Dying – '77 LA Show 4
F4 Sick Again – Snow Job
F5 Sex Machine, WLL Excerpt – Inglewood Mar 25, 1975
F6 Night Flight (Rehearsal) – Chicago July 7, 1973
F7 The Wanton Song – Chicago Jan 20, 1975
F8 When the Levee Breaks – Chicago Jan 20, 1975
F9 Since I've Been Loving You – Last Concert
F10 Tangerine – Earls Court combo 18th & 24th
F11 White Summer – Royal Albert Hall
F12 Kashmir – Destroyer
F13 WLL/Rock And Roll – '77 LA Show 3

Set G
The final set is focused on live material they played after 1975 and then also has some very cool versions of a lot of their earlier stuff. There’s a lot of songs, and each version tends to be long, culminating in a nearly four and a half hour grand finale!  The last B Side is here with G26. So many good versions of Trampled, I just wish they played it earlier on so I could have added G26b elsewhere in the set list; but it just doesn’t jive with the early stuff, so B Side it is. Set G originally was a 1977 set and the 'Set H' was their latter years. Not only did I have set list flow problems, but Sets G&H were almost the same as they didn't really add a lot of new material in 1979/80; likely because so few concerts were actually played.  So I scrapped Set H and squished a lot into the now bigger Set G, which I find is a much better listen.

A note on NQ; This is such an artsy concert song, that at a first listen, almost every version sounds unique, which did not make this song easy on me. I literally listened to about 12 NQ versions, multiple times over, for a week straight. And at ~30 mins each, that was an undertaking, haha.  Surprisingly, I did start to hear faint similar themes in some of the versions, so I was able to reduce it finally to the few that made this Concert.  I also ended up merging two versions together. Firstly it cut down the overall NQ playing time in this already 15 hr concert. But secondly, the start of my June 11 version is cut off (I later found the full recording). So merging it with the first half of Destroyers NQ and finishing it off with the June 11 show worked really well, I felt.  This was another way I could reduce the repeat occurrences of NQ while keeping the creativity of the each. For similar reasons, I did this with Stairway as well in this set, I hope you like this what I did here too.

A note on WLL; Firstly, there’s 2 versions in this set. But the 1980 version is so different, that G13 and G27 are hardly the same song…and I spaced them out by over 2 hrs, so I hope it’s not too much WLL. Lastly, I had another version of The Crunge in my pile of songs I liked, but had no place left for it to go. So I decided to extend WLL by adding it to the Crunge portion of the song. I don’t expect most will like this, but it is nice to have the final song of the long final set of this massive concert to be a bit longer than just 14 minutes.

G1 Heartbreaker – '77 LA Show 1
G2 Black Dog – Snow Job
G3 It’ll Be Me – Fort Worth May 22, 1977 w Mick Ralph of Bad Co.
G4 Black Country Woman – Destroyer
G5 Hot Dog – Rotterdam June 21, 1980
G6 The Battle of Evermore – Destroyer
G7 Nobody's Fault but Mine – Destroyer
G8 Ten Years Gone – Destroyer
G9 Since I’ve Been Loving You – '77 LA Show 1
G10 How Many More Times – BBC CD
G11 That’s Alright Mama, w D’Yer Mak’er interlude – '77 LA Show 5
G12 Communication Breakdown, w D’Yer Mak’er melody– Earls Court 
G13 Whole Lotta Love – Last Concert
G14 Over The Top, Out On The Tiles intro – Destroyer
G15 The Ocean – TSRTS CD (2007)
G16 All My Love – Last Concert
G17 For Your Life – Celebration Day
G18 Achilles Last Stand – Brussels June 20, 1980
G19 No Quarter – Combo first 16 mins Destroyer + last 26 mins NYC June 11, 1977
G20 In My Time of Dying – NYC June 7, 1977
G21 Over The Hills And Far Away – '77 LA Show 1
G22 Stairway To Heaven – Combo of 80% '77 LA Show 3 + 20% Destroyer
G23 We Shall Over Come – Osaka September 28, 1971
G24 Kashmir – '77 LA Show 1 
G25 In the Evening – Last Concert
G26A Trampled Under Foot – Destroyer
G27 Whole Lotta Love – Combo of TSRTS (Original), with The Crunge Seattle Mar 21, 1975

B Sides
Again, the idea here is to slip these versions in and out of their respective places in the set lists.  If I get more cool version ideas from you all, I will likely extend the B Sides, but we'll see how this goes. I do hope this project goes a bit viral in this forum and I get a lot of constructive responses. I may add a really cool Youtube We're Gonna Groove version to the B Sides if I can get around to it.

D5b Over the Hills and Far Away – Inglewood Mar 27, 1975
E9b Whole Lotta Love – Offenburg March 24, 1973
G26b Trampled Under Foot – Brussels June 20, 1980

Reference Concerts
Songs used multiple times in the set lists from these concerts are referenced by the concert name. Here are their date and location details.

Whisky A Go Go - LA Jan 5, 1969
Fillmore West - San Francisco April 27, 1969
Texas Pop Festival - Dallas August 31, 1969
Royal Albert Hall - London Jan 9, 1970
Live On Blueberry Hill - Inglewood, September 4, 1970
Osaka - September 29, 1971
Earls Court - London, May 25, 1975
Snow Job - Vancouver March 19, 1975
Destroyer - Cleveland April 27, 1977
LA Forum 1977 Concerts
    '77 LA Show 1 - June 21, Listen To This Eddie 
    '77 LA Show 3 - June 23
    '77 LA Show 4 - June 25
    '77 LA Show 5 - June 26
Last Concert - Berlin July 7, 1980
Celebration Day - London December 10, 2007

As best I can tell, these songs were never performed live by Led Zeppelin. I’m kinda hoping someone will show me a rare performance that I missed.

Boogie with Stu – Never performed
Candy Store Rock – Never performed
Carouselambra – Never performed
Custard Pie – Never performed
Down by the Seaside – Never performed
D'yer Mak'er – Sampled but never performed
Fool in the Rain – Never performed
Hats Off to (Roy) Harper – Never performed
Hots On for Nowhere – Never performed
Houses of the Holy – Never performed
I'm Gonna Crawl – Never performed
In the Light – Never performed
Living Loving Maid – Never performed live
Night Flight – Never performed, only a soundcheck
Royal Orleans – Never performed
South Bound Saurez – Never performed
Tea for One – Never performed
The Rover – Sampled in '77 concerts but never fully performed

Got any favourite versions of their live performances? I’d love to hear them. Again, I didn't go over all of their material, rather I focused on their legacy concerts and recommendations in the Forum from you folks. So surely I've missed some gems. If I get enough feedback, I may make a Take 3.  Hopefully this collection is pretty solid though, it represents over a year of effort.

Don’t like my set list? Take this set list and then make it your own. Remove what you don’t like and put in what ya do.  The above should at the very least make a very good starting point for ya. Overall, as I’ve been listening to these versions (amongst many, many others) for over a year now, I am STILL not sick of it. Man, this band is just too good. If you start a project, I strongly recommend good record keeping from day 1. A few versions I didn’t record which concert they were from…it took me forever to figure it all back out. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s still 1 or 2 errors up there. But I guess you'll have to listen to it to find out! DM me and I'll send you the downloadable links. Cheers,

Brad

[3hrsoflunacy]

31 minutes ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

As best I can tell, these songs were never performed live by Led Zeppelin. I’m kinda hoping someone will show me a rare performance that I missed.

Boogie with Stu – Never performed
Candy Store Rock – Never performed
Carouselambra – Never performed
Custard Pie – Never performed
Down by the Seaside – Never performed
D'yer Mak'er – Sampled but never performed
Fool in the Rain – Never performed
Hats Off to (Roy) Harper – Never performed
Hots On for Nowhere – Never performed
Houses of the Holy – Never performed
I'm Gonna Crawl – Never performed
In the Light – Never performed
Living Loving Maid – Never performed live
Night Flight – Never performed, only a soundcheck
Royal Orleans – Never performed
South Bound Saurez – Never performed
Tea for One – Never performed
The Rover – Sampled in '77 concerts but never fully performed

 

Well Brad, that was a big project, and one I have done similarly. Couple of notes:

1. Personally, I would go with the Communication Breakdown/Good Times, Bad Times jam from Sept 4, 1970. It isn't the longest version of GTBT (23 Sep 1971 is) but it is great, IMO.

2. The Rover was played (not complete) but significantly more than the intros used on tour during the soundcheck on 6 JUL 1973 in Chicago.

3. Carouselambra was played (4-5 min versions) at Clearwater Castle in May of 1978.

4. If you consider Led Zeppelin reunion performance w/Jason Bonham in your set list, would you consider Plant solo, JP & Black Crowes, or Page/Plant. That opens up Candy Store Rock, Custard Pie, Down By the Seaside, D'Yer Ma'ker, Hots on for Nowhere, In The Light, Living Loving Maid, Night Flight and Tea For One as potential additions.

5. There are some other songs, and snippets of songs from medleys and soundchecks that could be added. The studio session releases are a full of additional little treasures, as well as some careful editing to extract songs from medleys.

Good work.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

15 minutes ago, 3hrsoflunacy said:

Well Brad, that was a big project, and one I have done similarly. Couple of notes:

1. Personally, I would go with the Communication Breakdown/Good Times, Bad Times jam from Sept 4, 1970. It isn't the longest version of GTBT (23 Sep 1971 is) but it is great, IMO.

2. The Rover was played (not complete) but significantly more than the intros used on tour during the soundcheck on 6 JUL 1973 in Chicago.

3. Carouselambra was played (4-5 min versions) at Clearwater Castle in May of 1978.

4. If you consider Led Zeppelin reunion performance w/Jason Bonham in your set list, would you consider Plant solo, JP & Black Crowes, or Page/Plant. That opens up Candy Store Rock, Custard Pie, Down By the Seaside, D'Yer Ma'ker, Hots on for Nowhere, In The Light, Living Loving Maid, Night Flight and Tea For One as potential additions.

5. There are some other songs, and snippets of songs from medleys and soundchecks that could be added. The studio session releases are a full of additional little treasures, as well as some careful editing to extract songs from medleys.

Good work.

Hi 3Hrs, thanks for the info heavy, speedy response. I will definitely look into a lot of what you included above. On point 4, I used stuff from Celebration Day as my exception to the rule as they were billed as Zeppelin, even tho John isn't in the performance.  I did briefly consider adding this content, but then it got weird as the 95 Page/Plant tour has so much content to offer, yet it's so powerfully different. So instead I decided to try a post 1980 version of this same project...which I'm currently working on!

In the Zep Years, I know I've missed some rare content, very cool tips! Going to check out your Carouselambra tip right now. Very cool info, thanks

[Strider]

Quite an immense undertaking, Brad. Can't argue with most of your selections. But a few did stand out and I offer some alternatives.

   1 hour ago,  HollywoodBowl1998 said: 

E7 Stairway to Heaven – Last Concert

For the love of god, why? There are 100 better Stairway to Heavens than this disaster. 9.14.71 Berkeley. Any of the 1971 Japanese shows. March 24, 1973 Offenburg...or any other of the 1973 German shows. 3.21.75 Seattle. Any of the 12 1977 Madison Square Garden or L.A. Forum ones.

4 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

F7 The Wanton Song – Chicago Jan 20, 1975

The new Bloomington, Minnesota Jan 18, 1975 soundboard is much better.

4 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

G26A Trampled Under Foot – Destroyer

This is one case where you should go with the Last Concert in Berlin July 7, 1980. Not only is it the last "Trampled Under Foot" by the original Led Zeppelin, it is truly unique from the other performances, going into Kraftwerk/Neu!-esque grooves and atmospherics.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Strider

[Zep Hed]

All I gotta say is your passion and dedication are extraordinary. Never hurts to be reminded there are others who share my level of affinity for the band. Even moreso! Makes me wanna step up my game!

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this. Thoroughly impressive!

[John M]

Thanks for putting this all together and asking for suggestions.

One thing that struck me is that I would choose an earlier version of Heartbreaker.  Unless I am missing  something, the only versions I see on your list are from 1975 and 1977.  There are so many great versions from 1970-72, even 1973.  Heartbreaker to me is a song that requires a 1973 or earlier Page.  To my ears, the track had so much more life and spark in 1970-72.

On a related note, I might choose an earlier Bron-Y-Aur Stomp too.   The 1977 versions are good, but do not seem as fresh as the earlier ones.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

14 hours ago, Strider said:

Quite an immense undertaking, Brad. Can't argue with most of your selections. But a few did stand out and I offer some alternatives.

   1 hour ago,  HollywoodBowl1998 said: 

E7 Stairway to Heaven – Last Concert

For the love of god, why? There are 100 better Stairway to Heavens than this disaster. 9.14.71 Berkeley. Any of the 1971 Japanese shows. March 24, 1973 Offenburg...or any other of the 1973 German shows. 3.21.75 Seattle. Any of the 12 1977 Madison Square Garden or L.A. Forum ones.

The new Bloomington, Minnesota Jan 18, 1975 soundboard is much better.

This is one case where you should go with the Last Concert in Berlin July 7, 1980. Not only is it the last "Trampled Under Foot" by the original Led Zeppelin, it is truly unique from the other performances, going into Kraftwerk/Neu!-esque grooves and atmospherics.

Right, I didn't mention that I also looked for difference. The Berlin Stairway, at a macro level is much different, especially the last third of the song, than most other version I came across.  A lot of the cool Stairways each have really cool parts to them, but at a macro level there were overall very similar to TSRTS and '77 versions I already have in here. I do encourage anyone here...who's interested in listening to a 15 hr concert, haha...to take this list and make it their own. It's a great listen, and if you swap out some of my stuff for some of your own fav's, you're gonna love it!

 

I struggled with The Wonton Song. They're all of such poor quality. I'll give Jan 18 another listen, thanks! Same goes for TUF from the Berlin Concert. Not sure why I cut it now, but I have zero problems giving that song another listen. It's one of my favorite live songs. I was never blown away by the studio version, compared to the other studio songs, but the first time I heard it live; so powerful, so raw, so good. I was blown away. Almost like where did that come from?

 

Thanks for then recommendations! Cheers,

Brad

Edited December 31, 2021 by HollywoodBowl1998

[HollywoodBowl1998]

12 hours ago, Zep Hed said:

All I gotta say is your passion and dedication are extraordinary. Never hurts to be reminded there are others who share my level of affinity for the band. Even moreso! Makes me wanna step up my game!

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this. Thoroughly impressive!

Thanks Zep Head. It was a fun long journey. I almost didn't even start it. I had no idea at the beginning, what the end would like or the shear hours put into it, but I just knew it would be a lot and if I started there would be no turning back, haha. Zero regrets, I learned so much. I didn't even realize there was so much more to find out and on so many topics. Relatively speaking to this forum, I feel I went from a fan to a medium fan. The depths of knowledge and archives some people here have of the band still floors me. This forum rocks! DM me if ya want a copy of my final work. It's up on a cloud somewhere, whatever that means. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by HollywoodBowl1998

[HollywoodBowl1998]

39 minutes ago, John M said:

Thanks for putting this all together and asking for suggestions.

One thing that struck me is that I would choose an earlier version of Heartbreaker.  Unless I am missing  something, the only versions I see on your list are from 1975 and 1977.  There are so many great versions from 1970-72, even 1973.  Heartbreaker to me is a song that requires a 1973 or earlier Page.  To my ears, the track had so much more life and spark in 1970-72.

On a related note, I might choose an earlier Bron-Y-Aur Stomp too.   The 1977 versions are good, but do not seem as fresh as the earlier ones.

Hi John.  Great catch and funny, I swore I had more Heartbreakers on here too. Such a great live one, I'm almost shocked I don't even have a B side for it.  It was played for so long that it could easily fit in here again, so long as there was a different enough version. Got any suggestions from the earlier material? From the earlier eras you're mentioning? I'll dig too, but I really value tapping into the experience of the fans of this site.  As for B-Y-A Stomp, I probably went with what I thought was a better sound quality version, but it likely deserves a look back at the earlier material as well. Again, any first suggestions or thoughts? Yup, I'm happy to ask for suggestions. This effort, in  my mind, has been 50% for my own collection but also 50% for the truth of the band and to share it back. Always hard to discern the true best of live versions because we will all like different things and have personal preferences, but I wanted to give something back, especially as I've gotten so much myself. So I feel this is also for everyone else.

[Strider]

5 hours ago, John M said:

Thanks for putting this all together and asking for suggestions.

One thing that struck me is that I would choose an earlier version of Heartbreaker.  Unless I am missing  something, the only versions I see on your list are from 1975 and 1977.  There are so many great versions from 1970-72, even 1973.  Heartbreaker to me is a song that requires a 1973 or earlier Page.  To my ears, the track had so much more life and spark in 1970-72.

On a related note, I might choose an earlier Bron-Y-Aur Stomp too.   The 1977 versions are good, but do not seem as fresh as the earlier ones.

 

4 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

Hi John.  Great catch and funny, I swore I had more Heartbreakers on here too. Such a great live one, I'm almost shocked I don't even have a B side for it.  It was played for so long that it could easily fit in here again, so long as there was a different enough version. Got any suggestions from the earlier material? From the earlier eras you're mentioning? I'll dig too, but I really value tapping into the experience of the fans of this site.  As for B-Y-A Stomp, I probably went with what I thought was a better sound quality version, but it likely deserves a look back at the earlier material as well. Again, any first suggestions or thoughts? Yup, I'm happy to ask for suggestions. This effort, in  my mind, has been 50% for my own collection but also 50% for the truth of the band and to share it back. Always hard to discern the true best of live versions because we will all like different things and have personal preferences, but I wanted to give something back, especially as I've gotten so much myself. So I feel this is also for everyone else.

John M is right. You need pre-'75 "Heartbreaker". I recommend either the 9.14.71 Berkeley or the 1972 HTWWW versions...3.7.70 Montreux is another great alternative. You could also go with the 1971 Paris Theatre "Heartbreaker" from the BBC Sessions or the 1973 TSRTS "official" releases.

For "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp", the 1972 HTWWW version is far better than the 1977 Destroyer.

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Strider

[John M]

19 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

Hi John.  Great catch and funny, I swore I had more Heartbreakers on here too. Such a great live one, I'm almost shocked I don't even have a B side for it.  It was played for so long that it could easily fit in here again, so long as there was a different enough version. Got any suggestions from the earlier material? From the earlier eras you're mentioning? I'll dig too, but I really value tapping into the experience of the fans of this site.  As for B-Y-A Stomp, I probably went with what I thought was a better sound quality version, but it likely deserves a look back at the earlier material as well. Again, any first suggestions or thoughts? Yup, I'm happy to ask for suggestions. This effort, in  my mind, has been 50% for my own collection but also 50% for the truth of the band and to share it back. Always hard to discern the true best of live versions because we will all like different things and have personal preferences, but I wanted to give something back, especially as I've gotten so much myself. So I feel this is also for everyone else.

There are so many great Heartbreakers.  In addition to the ones Strider mentioned above, check out Orlando 71 and Osaka 9/29/71.  So good.  My favorite ever version is unfortunately cut off just as the jam gets cooking.  Royal Albert Hall 1970.  Of course the recording is great, the sound is immense, and Plant is out of this world.  

On the Stomp, a favorite of mine is Osaka 9/28/71 because it is such a different arrangement.  No bass, no drums.  And it has Jones on mandolin.  Intriguing.

As you said, so many great versions of all these songs to enjoy and explore.  

[John M]

Another note - for HMMT I would choose Danish TV.  The first guitar solo is incredible and the bow segment is so different and psychedelic.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

4 hours ago, John M said:

There are so many great Heartbreakers.  In addition to the ones Strider mentioned above, check out Orlando 71 and Osaka 9/29/71.  So good.  My favorite ever version is unfortunately cut off just as the jam gets cooking.  Royal Albert Hall 1970.  Of course the recording is great, the sound is immense, and Plant is out of this world.  

On the Stomp, a favorite of mine is Osaka 9/28/71 because it is such a different arrangement.  No bass, no drums.  And it has Jones on mandolin.  Intriguing.

As you said, so many great versions of all these songs to enjoy and explore.  

Thanks for these John. Agreed, that is a good Heartbreaker. Maybe I could combo the RAH version with another. I've gotten pretty good at making two versions seamlessly blend into one. It's never perfect, but always better than a cut off version, I did that with the  June 11, 1977 No Quarter, song G19 above, and love the result.

 

I'll have to dig into your Stomp and HMMT recommendations. HMMT is another one of my fav live songs, so always eager to find new gooders. Cheers,

Brad

[Strider]

The new source for November 7, 1969 Winterland that The Dogs of Doom dug up has an incredible heavy "Heartbreaker". It also has many incredible versions of the songs from the first two albums, including the first live performance on tape of "Bring It On Home"! The sound quality is amazing for a 1969 tape. 

 

[Strider]

As for "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp", besides the early 1971-72 versions that have been mentioned, I would go with the official Earls Court version that is on the DVD and the June 27, 1977 LA Forum one because it has them going into an acoustic "Dancing Days" in the middle and it is on a good quality Mike Millard tape.

The 4/27/77 Cleveland Destroyer bootleg should only be used as a last resort. The soundboard lacks punch, especially on the bottom end, and the performances are average.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

On 12/31/2021 at 3:22 PM, Strider said:

 

John M is right. You need pre-'75 "Heartbreaker". I recommend either the 9.14.71 Berkeley or the 1972 HTWWW versions...3.7.70 Montreux is another great alternative. You could also go with the 1971 Paris Theatre "Heartbreaker" from the BBC Sessions or the 1973 TSRTS "official" releases.

For "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp", the 1972 HTWWW version is far better than the 1977 Destroyer.

 

Thanks Strider for these additional recommendations! So good to tap into everyone's listening experience.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

18 hours ago, Strider said:

The new source for November 7, 1969 Winterland that The Dogs of Doom dug up has an incredible heavy "Heartbreaker". It also has many incredible versions of the songs from the first two albums, including the first live performance on tape of "Bring It On Home"! The sound quality is amazing for a 1969 tape. 

 

That is a clear recording, especially if it was from an audience tape.  The beginning of the set was a bit unclear but Heartbreaker is very clear, no echoing or drowned out vocals, etc. Very good. I have noticed during this project that the opening song of a lot of bootlegs is very poor quality and that it can take up to around the 3rd song to finally clear up. Any thoughts on that? My guess is that it's the overall crowd cheering/excitement that's causing this somehow. It was quite hard to get a good version of the Immigrant song for this reason as they tended to open concerts with it. Main reason why I used the version from HTWWW, not that it's not enjoyable.

That's a great first performance of Bring it on home. What a creative end to the song. Why was I born in '77, what an experience it would have been to go to one of these.   A neat project would be to capture their first performance of each song they every played. I did come across a website that had archived this, it was a good reference for the rare stuff. But it would be neat to listen to each of them in sequence.

Edited January 2, 2022 by HollywoodBowl1998

[John M]

For Achilles Last Stand and In the Evening, what about the Knebworth versions on the DVD?  Very strong performances and superb sound quality.

Edited January 3, 2022 by John M

[HollywoodBowl1998]

I had difficulty getting those from the DVD into a WAV or mp3 format. Any suggestions? Or has someone already done this? I'd love to have the whole DVD as mp3. There were other songs I couldn't consider due to this.  With all of the effort they went into to create the DVD, I'm a bit shocked they didn't offer a bonus CD version.

[HollywoodBowl1998]

On 1/1/2022 at 4:19 PM, Strider said:

As for "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp", besides the early 1971-72 versions that have been mentioned, I would go with the official Earls Court version that is on the DVD and the June 27, 1977 LA Forum one because it has them going into an acoustic "Dancing Days" in the middle and it is on a good quality Mike Millard tape.

The 4/27/77 Cleveland Destroyer bootleg should only be used as a last resort. The soundboard lacks punch, especially on the bottom end, and the performances are average.

Similar problem, how does one easily get the DVD work into mp3? Someone with tech skills here must have done this.

And thanks for the June 27, 77 tip. Sorta embarrassed to admit that I overlooked that one completely. I touched on the other LA concerts a bit, but I didn't dig into this one nearly enough. I just listened from Going Down South thru to Stomp/Dancing Days; that whole section is something special. I'm night consider doing something with all of it. First thoughts are inserting the whole thing somehow into Set G.  Gonna give this some serious consideration.  Thanks again Strider!

[3hrsoflunacy]

You need a DVD audio extractor, there are free ones out there, as well as 30 day trials of others. If it will not rip directly to mp3, there are other programs, like Trader's Little Helper (also free) that will encode the wav file to whatever you like.

[hummingbird69]

DVD is available in 24/48 flac format. I am sure someone here has it.

[Xolo1974]

5 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

Similar problem, how does one easily get the DVD work into mp3? Someone with tech skills here must have done this.

And thanks for the June 27, 77 tip. Sorta embarrassed to admit that I overlooked that one completely. I touched on the other LA concerts a bit, but I didn't dig into this one nearly enough. I just listened from Going Down South thru to Stomp/Dancing Days; that whole section is something special. I'm night consider doing something with all of it. First thoughts are inserting the whole thing somehow into Set G.  Gonna give this some serious consideration.  Thanks again Strider!

I’ve converted to mp3. I’m away at the moment, but will send you a link when I return next week 

[HollywoodBowl1998]

18 hours ago, Xolo1974 said:

I’ve converted to mp3. I’m away at the moment, but will send you a link when I return next week 

If I can twist your arm into this net week that would be fantastic! I tried something once myself, with disastrous results. It was such a let down that I just moved onto other material. Thanks Xolo!

[HollywoodBowl1998]

I've moved this overall post to Led Zep Live in the main forum. I think it should have been put there from the get go, but thanks a bunch everyone here for these comments. Super appreciated!