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This is my 3rd and I Final take on this and I swear I won't plague the Forum with another one of these, haha.   If you've followed or contributed in any way to my previous two takes, you may recall what motivated me to do this. If not, here's a quick summary.

Curiosity got me asking, of all the Live songs Zeppelin did, what do I have in my library...and just how many songs did they perform live; 58.  This led me to realize I've been living under an internet rock for a very long time.

There are so many unreal zeppelin websites that I could not have done this without. Black Beauty was the most relevant by far, ditto this Forum. The music and content between those two sites was an unbelievable resource. A huge thanks to devoted Zep Fans who offered insights and thoughts as I took on this ~2.5 year task.  Then there's sites like The Garden Tapes by Eddie Edwards; such masters level devotion to the official live content. And other detailed sites like the Plantations website, the site that itemized cover songs they did, etc. So much good info out there that helped me tackle this project, thanks and kudos to all.

So here it is, my final cut at Zeppelin's Best Of Live Performances. The biggest difference from before is the influence of the 2003 DVD songs I finally got onto mp3, thanks to Xolo1974. For these (and the other official release songs) I've embedded into the file the reference date/location of the performance; thanks again to the high detail of The Garden Tapes work.  A few new Heartbreaker and Dazed versions made it in as well as a few other recommendations from Forum Folks.  There's also a lot more B-sides as many recommendations couldn't be left off. I'd like to put another big shout out to Michael Fry who offered his unreal work from his 50th Anniversary Box Set efforts (see his forum post) not to mention his editing advice via the Audacity application. With it I've been able to make so many edits, most of which were tinkering with Plantation intros and outros to songs. But it also helped with so many other small things that improved the listening experience; often a 30+ minute effort to improve less than 30 seconds of song, haha. Between those and a lot of advice, thoughts, feedback, etc. Mike's fingerprint is on this a bunch!

Note that this project focused more on song quality, as some muffled audience versions were good but sounded too much like someone was snuffing out my speakers with a pillow. So I did focus heavily on official releases, soundboards or very good audience recordings.

Between their live content and cover tunes, there's over 81 different songs. But when you consider the multiple versions of their major hits and the 15 B Sides, this massive seven set 125 song "concert" compilation comes in at over 18.5 hours of some seriously sweet Zeppelin listening.

Some songs are referenced by their official release CD/DVD. Some songs are referenced by their well known concerts which I pulled several songs from. The remainder are referenced directly with their location and date. Hopefully this is easy to follow. The below can let ya put this together yourself, and then even modify it to fit your fav song preferences. Feel free to PM me if you'd like my copy as it'll save you a lot of time...maybe even years, haha.  Enjoy!

Set A 
Most of this set is targeted at songs created in 1968-69. I cut A15 down to mostly just the melodies. The first part was pretty poor in quality yet the melodies were in much better condition...and considering WLL shows up a lot in the following sets, this altering made sense to me.  The first two B Sides show up in Set A now, as more cool versions came my way.

A1 Good Times Bad Times – Celebration Day CD
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
A7a Dazed And Confused - 2003 DVD (Mar 17)
A8 White Summer/Black Mountain Side – Live At Olympia CD
A9 Killing Floor/Lemon Song – Fillmore West
A10 Pat’s Delight – Fillmore West
A11 The Girl She Got Long Brown Wavy Hair – BBC Sessions CD
A12a Babe I'm Gonna Leave You – Whiskey A Go Go
A13 Beatles Interlude - Osaka
A14 Your Time Is Gonna Come, WLL excerpt - Tokyo Sep 24, 1971
A15 WLL Melodies - Osaka
A16 You Shook Me – Live At Olympia CD
A17 How Many More Times – Fillmore West
A18 Communication Breakdown – Live On Blueberry Hill

Set B
This set is aiming towards 1970 songs. By somewhat coincidence I stuck a lot of the Blueberry Hill material together, in it's original sequence as it sounded great the way the band had it.  Forum folk brought my attention to RAH's Heartbreaker, which legit is an outstanding version. Given it was cut off, I thought the latter half of an Osaka concert was equally good and fitting to complete the song.  I transitioned it as best I could but have to admit it's ok, but not perfect, yet enjoyable enough to keep.

B1 We’re Gonna Groove – Montreux Mar 7, 1970
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 CD
B11 What Is and What Should Never Be – BBC Sessions CD
B12 Bring It On Home – HTWWW CD
B13a Heartbreaker – Royal Albert Hall n Osaka
B14 Whole Lotta Love – Live on Blueberry Hill
B15 Blueberry Hill – Live On Blueberry Hill

Set C
In this somewhat 1971 set, I did another WLL melodies. The beginning of WLL HTWWW was very similar to TSRTS and others, so I cut it and focused on the material that was different.  Celebration Day below is such a good version, but the start up was relatively drab, so I swapped a few seconds from TSRTS to liven it up.

C1 Immigrant Song – HTWWW CD
C2a Celebration Day – Osaka Sep 28, 1971 opening w TSRTS CD (original)
C3 Long Tall Sally – Royal Albert Hall
C4 The Lemon Song – Whisky A Go Go
C5 Friends – Osaka
C6a 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 mostly 1972 themed set begins to transition into 1973. Black Country Woman is a bit lower in quality, but I believe was the only time they played it before the '77 concerts, so it seemed right to include it. I put D9 & D10 on the same track so they would play seamlessly like they're supposed to.

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 – 2003 DVD
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
D12a Rock and Roll – HTWWW CD

Set E
The songs I was setting aside for this set started to take the form of the 1973 TSRTS, with E5 being the only real exception. I somewhat followed the order of the original NYC set list. With D12 finishes off Set D, it helps blend into the start of Set E given it was the concert opener in ’73. I again put E2 & E3 on the same file so they would blend properly without my mp3 player botching it up with a pregnant pause. Any recommendations for a good MP3 player? It does this with all my other albums too; really annoying.

E1 Black Dog – HTWWW CD
E2 The Song Remains the Same – TSRTS CD (original)
E3 The Rain Song – TSRTS CD (original)
E4a No Quarter – Snow Job
E5 The Crunge – WLL excerpt Dallas Mar 5, 1975
E6a Dazed and Confused – HTWWW
E7 Stairway to Heaven – Last Concert
E8 Moby Dick – HTWWW CD
E9a Heartbreaker - Earls Court
E10a Whole Lotta Love – Detroit July 13, 1973
E11 The Ocean – HTWWW CD
E12 Thank You – NYC July 27, 1973


Set F
This set is an attempt to feature Physical Graffiti a bit. F6 and F10 are excellent versions provided by Michael Fry, really cool listens. I added a small touch to F10 and hopefully blended it well enough that you'll notice it and not notice it at the same time. I started adding more plantations in these later sets, I felt they added to this project making it feel more concert-like without just cutting this exactly song by song. Cheers to Strider who directed me to the soundboard for The Wonton Song, it's legit the most clear of the few versions out there; great find from a guy who seems to have some of the most obscure and in depth knowledge of the band.

F1a 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 – 2003 DVD
F5 Sex Machine – Inglewood Mar 25, 1975
F6 Night Flight (Soundcheck) – Chicago July 7, 1973
F7 The Wanton Song – Minneapolis Jan 18, 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
F13a 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 their earlier stuff. 

The difference between Take 2 of this project and Take 3 mostly shows itself in Set G, as two more songs got moved/added in here while some others got replaced and/or got moved to the B sides. Overall, there’s a lot of songs and each version tends to be long. This set now clocks in at just over four and a half hours culminating in a grand finale of some serious tunes!

I had to edit Black Country Woman and Hot Dog together. I liked the immediate start of Hot Dog, but again, my mp3 player's pregnant pause was ruining things. For similar reasons G25 & G 26 are also one track, you'll see why with how I've edited them. I liked how 1977s G12 sets up 1975s G13.

NQ is such an artsy concert song.  So many versions sounds unique at first, which didn't make selecting a few 'best' versions for this project easy. I quarreled over a dozen versions, listening to them repeatedly for a week; and at 25-30 mins each, it was an undertaking, haha. I may have gotten caught in a Zep vortex, but I did finally see some similar themes in the versions, which helped reduce it to the few in this 'concert'. In this set I merged the first half of Destroyer's NQ with the June 11 show that was cut off. I did later found the full recording, but preferred the combo as it reduced 2 versions into 1 while making a long and epic NQ. I also did a Stairway combination in this set. I think it comes off really cool, but you'll have to judge for yourself.

Yes, there’s 2 versions of WLL in this one set. The 1980 version, however, is so different from all of the others, that G14 and G29 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 the final WLL by adding it to the Crunge portion of the song. I don’t expect most will like it, 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
G11a Dazed And Confused – TSRTS CD (original)
G12 That’s Alright Mama – '77 LA Show 5
G13 Communication Breakdown – Earls Court
G14 Whole Lotta Love – Last Concert
G15 Over The Top – Destroyer
G16 The Ocean – TSRTS CD (2007)
G17 All My Love – Last Concert
G18 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp w Dancing Days - '77 LA Show 6
G19 For Your Life – Celebration Day CD
G20 Achilles Last Stand – 2003 DVD
G21 No Quarter – Combo first 16 mins Destroyer + last 26 mins NYC June 11, 1977
G22 In My Time of Dying – NYC June 7, 1977
G23 Over The Hills And Far Away – '77 LA Show 1
G24 Stairway To Heaven – Combo of 80% '77 LA Show 3 + 20% Destroyer
G25 We Shall Over Come – Osaka September 28, 1971
G26 Kashmir – '77 LA Show 1 
G27 In the Evening – 2003 DVD
G28a Trampled Under Foot – Destroyer
G29 Whole Lotta Love – Combo of TSRTS (Original), with The Crunge Seattle Mar 21, 1975


B Sides
These are the biggest change for Take 3 of this concert as they grew from 3 songs to 15 thanks to all the great forum suggestions. A bigger B-side makes for more of a switch up to the Concert which I liked.  Again, the idea is to slip these versions in and out of their respective places in the set lists. I've edited the intro/outros to these so they transition well into the concert. F13b was an attempt at mimicking F13a, I think they work together; sorta how they do in the '77 LA Concerts.

A07b Dazed And Confused - 2003 DVD
A12b Babe I'm Gonna Leave You - 2003 DVD
B13b Heartbreaker - Orlando Aug 13, 1971
C02b Celebration Day - Toronto Sep 4, 1971
C06b That's The Way - 2003 DVD
D5b Over The Hills And Far Away – Inglewood Mar 27, 1975
D12b Rock And Roll - 2003 DVD
E04b No Quarter - London May 18, 1975
E06b Dazed And Confused - Osaka Sep 28 + 29, 1971
E9b Heartbreaker - Long Beach Jun 27, 1972 HTWWW JRK Remix
E10b Whole Lotta Love – Offenburg March 24, 1973
F01b Going To California - 2003 DVD
F13b WLL 2003 DVD followed by RnR Landover May 30, 1977
G11b Dazed And Confused - Vienna Mar 16, 1973
G28b Trampled Under Foot – Brussels June 20, 1980


Reference Concerts
Official releases are referenced within the mp3 file as best I could by referencing The Garden Tapes work.  The rest are either fully detailed above or are referenced only by their concert name as they provided many songs for this project.  These are noted and referenced below.

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 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
    '77 LA Show 6 - June 27
Last Concert - Berlin July 7, 1980

As best I can tell, these songs were never performed live by Led Zeppelin. Some had rehearsals or soundchecks, but nothing of any real live performance or complete song.

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


My research into this project focused on their legacy concerts and recommendations in the Forum from you folks. I didn't listen to or go through all of their live material but I feel this collection of songs is pretty solid though.

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 good starting point for ya. 

I’ve been listening to many versions of all of their songs for over two years now and am still not sick of it. It shows just how solid, creative and variable these guys were. If you do 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. I believe I got it all sorted out, 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

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I am sure this was a labor of love. I did a similar type of compilation but took each studio album and re-created it in 2 versions - One with multi-track or SBD recordings from studio, soundcheck, or concert and another with audience recordings. Then the last discs were all the covers, and unreleased stuff.

Anyway, here are my comments with my opinion on some of the choices.

Set C
Celebration Day - I personally prefer the 1971.09.04 Toronto version.
Gallows Pole - I think Ipswitch 1971.11.16 is probably is the better of the 2 complete versions in circulation.

Set D
OTHAFA - Your pick is from '75. I think the Seattle one from 1975.03.21 is better.

Set E
The Crunge - 1975.03.19 Vancouver would be my pick
Dazed - Hamburg all the way - 1973.03.21.
Heartbreaker - I'd pick one that is either unique (1973.03.16 Vienna) or have Page on top of his game (Offenburg 1973.03.24)
Thank You - I prefer the Southampton one for both quality and it is a littler more mellow version which contrasts with the BBC Sessions version you previously selected.

Set F
In My Time of Dying - 1977.04.28 - Bonzo is a BEAST in this one.
Sick Again - St. Louis 1975.02.16 is one I'd pick if it were to keep it closer to the release date of PG.
WTLB - I would pick Minneapolis for the sound quality difference alone.

Set G
Ten Years Gone 1977.05.30 Largo, MD or 1979.07.24 Copenhagen are better versions.
Nobody's Fault But Mine - Knebworth 1979.08.04 has to be the best version.
No Quarter - 1977.06.27 Inglewood, CA.
Over the Hills - 1977.06.22 Inglewood, CA


Never played stuff
Candy Store Rock, Custard Pie, Night Flight, Tea For One have all been performed by Page/Plant in entirety
Plant has performed Fool In The Rain and Living Loving Maid and In The Light
There is an edit somewhere of the soundcheck of The Rover on YouTube. It pretty much makes a complete song.

Anyway, they might not be your picks, but I encourage you to listen to all the ones I listed above if you haven't.

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Such a thorough review! I wish I got these a while ago.  I will definitely give them a listen, and possibly include it into my own Sets. I think if I post another version of this, The Forum might ask "Is he not done yet?", lol.  Super interested in you Gallows recommendation. Destroyer's Ten Years gone might be hard to beat. I've listened to a ton and nothing so far has topped the raw emotion Plant belted out that night in Cleveland.

I should note that I meant Zeppelin never performed those songs live. As for the soundchecks, with the exception of Fry's Night Flight that I did include, I found they all really lacked the energy of a concert performance, so I've left them out. They were more like rehearsals for studio work...to me anyways.  Page n Plant performed quite a lot of stuff over the years, solo and especially in their 95/96 tour...which I'm looking fwd to tackling next! True, I used stuff from Celebration Day, but technically they were billed as Led Zeppelin. :) 

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On 7/3/2022 at 1:33 PM, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

Such a thorough review! I wish I got these a while ago.  I will definitely give them a listen, and possibly include it into my own Sets. I think if I post another version of this, The Forum might ask "Is he not done yet?", lol.  Super interested in you Gallows recommendation. Destroyer's Ten Years gone might be hard to beat. I've listened to a ton and nothing so far has topped the raw emotion Plant belted out that night in Cleveland.

I should note that I meant Zeppelin never performed those songs live. As for the soundchecks, with the exception of Fry's Night Flight that I did include, I found they all really lacked the energy of a concert performance, so I've left them out. They were more like rehearsals for studio work...to me anyways.  Page n Plant performed quite a lot of stuff over the years, solo and especially in their 95/96 tour...which I'm looking fwd to tackling next! True, I used stuff from Celebration Day, but technically they were billed as Led Zeppelin. :) 

I am gonna give TYG from Destroyer another listed based on your comment.

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Exhaustive effort, no doubt. But the Destroyer stuff is a no-go for me. I can't stand the sound of the 1977 soundboards...too antiseptic. Especially Destroyer. Jimmy makes a hash out of the guitar solo. There are a plethora of better "Ten Years Gone" from 1977...all on decent to excellent quality audience tapes. I would even rather listen to the "Ten Years Gone" from the Seattle 1977 soundboard.

1979 has two great "Ten Years Gone" from July 24 Copenhagen and August 4 Knebworth.

Edited by Strider
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On 7/11/2022 at 3:35 PM, Strider said:

Exhaustive effort, no doubt. But the Destroyer stuff is a no-go for me. I can't stand the sound of the 1977 soundboards...too antiseptic. Especially Destroyer. Jimmy makes a hash out of the guitar solo. There are a plethora of better "Ten Years Gone" from 1977...all on decent to excellent quality audience tapes. I would even rather listen to the "Ten Years Gone" from the Seattle 1977 soundboard.

1979 has two great "Ten Years Gone" from July 24 Copenhagen and August 4 Knebworth.

Thanks Strider!  Coming from you, that means a lot :) 

I think my growing up on Destroyer has made this sound you speak of so normal to me, that it sounds so good to me. And yes, I did cut out the guitar solo completely from this project. It's like Avant-garde Jazz to me; a bunch of random experimental noise. Not even after years of listening did I ever like it. For me it was the unenjoyable drag down in any of the 77 concerts stuck between all of the good stuff. In my boot, it was affixed to Achilles, so I couldn't easily just skip over it either. 

I'll have to give another try to your TYG recommendations. I did try a lot, but none had the same raw emotion in plants voice like this one. I guess that's what I like in slower songs, to be overflowing with emotion. So wish they did I'm gonna crawl while all together. @shnflacwav do tell me if it's been a good revisit...or am I off on an island alone on this one. Always a possibility. ;) 

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12 hours ago, HollywoodBowl1998 said:

I'll have to give another try to your TYG recommendations. I did try a lot, but none had the same raw emotion in plants voice like this one. I guess that's what I like in slower songs, to be overflowing with emotion. So wish they did I'm gonna crawl while all together. @shnflacwav do tell me if it's been a good revisit...or am I off on an island alone on this one. Always a possibility. ;) 

I listened to 4/27 and 5/30 back to back a few times. I think Jimmy's playing on 5/30 is better, especially in the solo, which sets it apart for me.

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11 hours ago, shnflacwav said:

I listened to 4/27 and 5/30 back to back a few times. I think Jimmy's playing on 5/30 is better, especially in the solo, which sets it apart for me.

I'll have to give Largo another go. I was leaning towards a better plant performance, so likely overlooked the rest of the band in this one. Thanks!

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