any Led Zep projects in the works?

Hi Eddie,Just curious,why does Page NEED audience tapes?

 

Well he is the sort of historian of the band if that's what you want to call it. I heard that through his management he or they (as in the band) put out a call several times for uncirculated stuff so he must have an interest in it.

I know he's been given bootlegs in the past as gifts from fans and the like.

Eddie

 

Oh I don't know, I rather like those soundboards I've heard where Jonesy' bass is up there in the mix. I've long considered him one of the most underrated bass players in rock. Geddy, Macca, Chris Squire, Jack Bruce, they all get the glory, but I feel JPJ is their equal. Some of the soundboards that have surfaced in the last year or two feature tremendous bass playing and it just can't be heard as well on any of the audience recordings.

 

It's well documented in Zeppelin circles that many tapes were taken from Jimmy Page by people he trusted without his knowing. I don't know how big a fan you are or aren't but if you were part of the trading and collecting circles you would know this.

I was offered a digital copy of a tape about 2 years ago that had one of these suspect lineages...

BTW why has this thread been allowed to continue since we are talking bootlegs here. The Dr Ebbett's thread was shut after only a handful of posts.

Eddie

 

As far as I know the Gorts have allowed certain threads to continue as long as there was no direct links to bootleg sites or naming various bootleg sites.

 

is there a list or something about all the Zep professionally taped gigs 1969-1980?

love to know specially if any of those 1970-71 gigs were recorded
thanks!

 

The difference is we are talking about recordings here. Not specific bootlegs.

 

Well the preparations for the 2003 releases included taking a full inventory of everything they had. You can see some of the footage in menu background footage on the DVD at times. Page said in one interview that all the original multitracks for all the studio albums were located and in good shape. The warehouse you see in the menu backgrounds looks bigger than what would be necessary to hold album multitracks and the limited amount of shows Page claimed at the time to have on tape, so I imagine his collection would be rather extensive.

Now that would be a cool place to work! (and I don't mean the climate control)

 

Listen, I think Jones is one of the greatest rock bassists ever. You don't have to sell me on that fact. As far as I'm concerned, when they were "on" - he and Bonzo were the tightest rhythm section in rock and roll. Still, I much prefer the balanced mix and ambiance of the audience LA Forum tapes over the sterile, bass heavy soundboards from 1977. If one of the LA Forum '77 shows surfaced as a soundboard with a more balanced mix like the 2/12/75 Madison Square Garden, then that would be a different story.

Going back to what could conceivably be issued in the future, it would be nice if Page could revisit the Japan '71 tapes that he dismissed in 2003. There are clearly some very unique performances on them and the band was arguably at its zenith as a live unit. In addition, I have always thought Earls Court '75 would make for a great CD/DVD package. Look at the work Page and Shirley did with the audio for the official DVD project. Would love to see what they could do with some additional performances.

 

Boards exist for the 70 and 71 years and some are in circulations.

However they did not record that many shows officially during those years from memory. I remembering seeing a list and I'll try and find it. We do have the Royal Albert Hall show and the BBC performances from that era. There's talk that Bath was recorded but nothing has surfaced so far in bootleg (apart from an audience tape) or official form. Of course there are the Japan 71 shows that are said to be in existence (or thrown away depending on which version of the story one believes!).

Overall Zeppelin recorded very few shows officially (i.e. multitrack) but I do know that they recorded a lot of shows via the board. Most of the 75 US shows were recorded by Show Co (and subsequently they "lost" some tapes). At one point I thought they recorded the LA 77 shows but it appears they didn't. Although a fragment exists of Jimmy's noise guitar solo before Achilles. The lighting guys used the recording to work out the triggers for the concerts. This snippet surfaced on a while back.

Eddie

 

I think the next archive release we get will be something along these lines. Probably more CD wise. Sort of a collection of live stuff. I would not be surprised if a cd comes out of the Royal Albert Hall show at some point as that is probably almost ready anyway.

I don't see a DVD coming out apart from the o2 show maybe. Can't say for certain of course.

Jimmy has talked about some outtakes and what have you that were rumored to be released on a Zep 4 anniversary special edition years ago. Again I don't see it coming out for a while if at all.

I think Jimmy will go into his less is more mode and let things be for a while now.

Eddie

 

I don't know for certain but my impression is once Zep used ShowCo SB tapes were made of every performance. I don't know exactly when they started using ShowCo but there should be SB's for most dates from '71 on.

AFAIK Page has never said anything specifically about the Japan '71 recordings other than "he has some stuff from Japan." I want to say a fan asked him awhile back if he had Japan '72 and he said he did but my memory of that is fuzzy.

 

I think the list of multitracked shows is something like this..


Royal Albert Hall '70 (2003 DVD)
Japan '71 - 2 shows in Osaka
LA Forum '72 (HTWWW)
Long Beach '72 (HTWWW)
Southampton - (rough performance)
MSG '73 (3 nights, used for TSRTS LP and film)
Earl's Court (3 nights with the 1st of the 3 having recording problems)
Knebworth - 2 shows (2003 DVD)

- Good chance Bath '70 was multitracked
- Japan '72 seems likely but I'm not sure we know for sure
- I've read Kezar Stadium was pro recorded, not sure though. Supposedly some of Pittsburgh was filmed, not sure about a pro recording.

 

I'd like to get both those 72 shows released in full but that isn't going to happen. The MSG performances would be nice too. Maybe one day a 9 cd boxset of all three shows for the crazy completest fans.

I think the only bits from Pittsburgh they filmed were non-concert footage. I believe they were just doing some testing before the MSG nights. I can't remember all the details but I think it's generally accepted they didn't film any concert sequences.

I think there is board out of the Kezar show. I can't remember but I don't think it was pro recorded. I think people thought it might be because of the nice colour footage available of that show but it I believe it was just a news outfit taping those segments we see.

If the Bath and Japan 71 shows exists in good quality I think we will see them one day. I suspect though that the Japan 71 shows might just be of ok quality. Here's hoping for Bath 70!

Eddie

 

Personaly I would take Japan`71 over anything else.Thats even if the quality of the recordings were not great and who knows that may just add a little atmosphere.Even a warts and all soundboard with multiple versions of song would be interesting.I like some of japan`72 also.As a fan I really can`t see the big deal of putting this stuff out officially if it does exist.

 

I also agree there is masterpiece waiting to be edited together from the Earl`s Court Multitracks.I`d love to do it!

 

I'd rather see 69 and 70 stuff than another hash of 75 shows.

In my collection, HTWWW is almost never played...

 

HTWWW was from the 72 tour....

I agree that a 69/70 show would be preferable to a 75 show. Although I'd take whatever was given at this point

I'm sure something will come out over the next few years.

Eddie

 

I would love to see Earl's Court released as a blu ray
none of the cropping and tone changes we saw in the Live DVD

Earl's Court was the most photogenic Zep captured on film

granted the film was done for the overhead screen and is cropped in too close

I saw Zep at Pontiac in 77 and there was a screen shot there too

maybe Plant will get like Jagger and want his young image produced as he gets older (can anyone say Rock and Roll Circus)

Plant is too critical of his voice and it was shot after Japan
the 73 tour he was singing in a lower register
and with some artifical sustain

every musician friend of mine to a t, says jonesy was the piece that held that band together, humble, playful, not full of himself

those plant/page bands with the son in law bass player couldn't improvise their way out of a paper bag - real shame

jonesy has such great presence to underplay - just the right embellishment

 

In Dave Lewis' updated The Concert File book, he says Page discovered some of the Japan '71 tapes in 1997 while researching the archives, but did not consider them good enough to warrant release during the 2003 archival releases. He seems to be a pretty knowledgeable source. It is also believed that tapes of Japan '72 exist as well. A couple of years after HTWWW/DVD were issued, the Tight But Loose website said Atlantic was considering the release of the '72 tapes as How The East Was Won. Not the first time an archival release was possibly in the pipeline. I remember seeing rumors of a pending two disc 1970 Royal Albert Hall CD release about 10 years ago as well as a 30th anniversary LZ IV deluxe release with outtakes. The existence of those three possibilities all seem believable. And of course, who can forget the press releases of Page's multi-disc live retrospective boxset from 1993 that never materialized (years later Page mentioned he aborted plans because others associated with the band did not want it issued).

 

Although Dave is an authority, remember that he often posts stories about current rumors the Tight But Loose web site. Just because it's mentioned there, it doesn't mean it's so.

Page has been talking about a chronological live release for decades now. I still recall after the death of Plant's son cancelled the '77 US tour there was nothing from the Zeppelin camp for awhile then suddenly Page did an interview with a UK music paper (not NME but another one <now defunct> whose name escapes me right now). He talked in detail about such a project covering all stages of the band's career. He talked about it again in 2003 and said the project evolved into the DVD.

 

I want to avoid breaking forum rules about discussing bootlegs, so I won't mention any specific titles or websites; but I have downloaded some "matrix" boots of Zeppelin shows - some are weak (poor track matching, mixing, eq, etc) but some are quite good. With Pro-Tools, or even lesser software, a home hobbyist can take multiple sources of the same show (audience and sound board), correct for variation in the tape speeds (critically important), and mix the two together.

Page seems to know what's going on in the world of bootlegs, and he has been spotted at shops that specialize in such. I suspect that he has also heard some of these remarkable "Matrix" mixes. If Page is sitting on some unreleased soundboards, and can add ambiance by mixing them with a quality audience recording of the same show, it might sound pretty amazing!

 

The Japan 1971 tapes released would be much interesting than the 1972 ones, IMHO

killer performances and great setlists!

 

That was a very interesting post, mrlefty. What you are saying goes hand in hand with a theory of mine that fans should have a greater say in archival releases. Technology has gotten so very good, I'd love to see something like this come out in official form as as far as Led Zeppelin shows go. I'd put in for them. I honestly think it would do Jimmy good to sit down and talk to groups of well-informed Led Zeppelin fans who would not fawn over him and actually discuss specific tours and shows for potential releases.