1971

Studio 1971?

Length:5 minutes

Track List: acoustic strumming, electric jam, acoustic picking jam, acoustic picking jam repeat with strumming turns into Dancing Days, Dancing Days acoustic, Dancing Days acoustic.

Recording Quality: Very good studio recording for the "Electric Jam" Very good non-professional recording for the acoustic sections.

Comments:A bunch of fragments. Most of this is just Page on an acoustic guitar. The electric jam is about 15 seconds of guitar, drums and bass. I assume it's Bonham and Jones. You can hear Plant right at the begining of the electric jam. Is this tape a tease of more studio out takes and rehersals? Is there more?


MARCH 5, 1971
ULSTER HALL, BELFAST, IRELAND

More Details shortly!!!


AUGUST 22, 1971
THE FORUM, INGLEWOOD, CA, U.S.A.

CORRECTION

Comments: Going to California is incorrectly listed as being on the tape.


AUGUST 23, 1971
TARANT COUNTY CONVENTION CENTER, FORT WORTH, TX, U.S.A

Length: 86 minutes (incomplete)

Track List: Dazed and Confused (cuts in the middle of the bow section), Stairway to Heaven, Celebration Day, That's the Way, What is and What Should Never Be, Moby Dick(cut), Whole Lotta Love Medle(includes: Boogie Woogie, Bottle Up and Go, Mess of the Blues, You Shook Me), Communication Breakdown(cut).

Recording Quality: Excellent audience recording.

Comments: Possibly the best audience recording of any of the '71 shows. Lucky for us, Jimmy is a bit high in the mix. There is an excellent interview with the taper in July 1997 issue of Proximity Led Zeppelin Collector's Journal. I believe the taper mentions that he was seated in the first few rows. This would account for both the lack of audience noise and the quality of the recording. Pages solo during You Shook me is great! The recording quality of Communication Breakdown is much worse that the rest of the show. The taper mentions in his interview that he changed seats (further back) before Communication Breakdown

Bootleg CD Reference: Hot August Night by The Diagrams of Led Zeppelin. I've also heard that the Tarantura Label released this show with the title Tarant to Ya, but I've never seen this title on any trading list.



NOVEMBER 11, 1971
CITY HALL, NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

Length: 56 minutes (incomplete)

Track List: Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Black Dog, Since I've Been Loving You, Rock and Roll, Stairway to Heaven, That's the Way, Going to California; Tangerine.

Recording Quality: A very good stable audience recording with some audience noise.

Comments: When this tape came out, it was one of the best quality recordings of the tour. Of course now we know better with the Ipswich and Leicester tapes. I've heard that more of this tape exists. I hope that rumor is true!
Bootleg CD Reference: Teddy Bear's Picnic by an unknown label (although I've heard it was by The Diagrams of Led Zeppelin)
UPDATE!!! The rest of this tape is now commonly circulating it contains the following additional tracks: Dazed and Confused, What Is & What Should Never Be, Celebration Day. Word has it that the whole show was taped, but the last tape is lost.


NOVEMBER 16, 1971
ST. MATTHEW'S BATHS, IPSWICH, ENGLAND

Length: 130 minutes(incomplete)

Track List: Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Black Dog, Since I've Been Loving You, Rock and Roll, Stairway to Heaven, Going to California, That's the Way, Tangerine, Dazed and Confused, What Is and What Should Never Be, Celebration Day, Whole Lotta Love Medle(includes: Boogie Woogie, Hello Mary Lou, Mess of the Blues, Honey Bee(Cut).

Comments: Three recordings from this one: (1) a fair to good audience recording, (2) a very good audience recording and (3) an excellent audience recording-the best of the late UK '71 tour. All three recordings contain some of Whole Lotta Love, none are complete. (note:stay tuned-there could be some changes here!!)

Bootleg CD References: Two Penny Upright by Antrabata contains some of source 2. Kinetic Circus by Thereamin is a copy of the Antrabata Disk, Ipswich '71 by The Diagrams of Led Zeppelin contains all of source 2 with source 1 filler, Over the Twelve Foot End label unknown contains some of this show (but I'm not sure what sources), Feelin Groovy by Empress Valley is the only release with the excellent source 3 and some source 2 filler. UPDATE! A new and more complete source has come to light with complete Whole Lotta Love and Encores of Weekend and Gallows Pole! This has again been released on the Empress Valley Label as Feelin Groovy Definitive Edition



NOVEMBER 25, 1971
LEICESTER UNIVERSITY, ENGLAND

Track Listing: Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Black Dog, Since I've Been Loving You, Celebration Day, Going to California, That's the Way, Tangerine (stop), Tangerine, Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp, Dazed and Confused(incl. Theme From Shaft), Stairway to Heaven, What Is and What Should Never Be, Whole Lotta Love(Incl. Just A Little Bit, I'm Going Down, Boogie Woogie, Mary Lou, Rave On, Mess O' Blues, Squeeze My Lemon), Rock and Roll, Communication Breakdown.

Length: 145 minutes.

Recording Quality: Very good audience recording-a bit flat in places.

Comments: The following review is based on the bootleg CD release Magical Majesties Request by Electric Magic. Thanks goes out to David Montgomery for letting me use his review!
Yet another recent liberation from the vaults of the hoarders, the new bootleg “Mystical Majesties Request” is simply stunning. Beyond the obvious Holy Grails, there could be few better choices for unearthing than this transitional November 25th show, and we Yanks (at least) should give thanks for our bounty. Coming hot on the heels of at least two other amazing performances, 11/20/71 and 11/24/71, and mere months after the unparalleled August and September shows, this document finds the band consolidating the successes of that incredible two-month period. The results are a confirmation of all that one wants to believe about the majesty of Led Zeppelin, a belief tarnished by the myriad of subpar and inconsistent performances that followed this date but preceded this release. When Immigrant Song was dropped from the leadoff spot some months later, and thence from the setlist altogether, something more than a mere song disappeared forever: the band lost its way, somehow. Fortunately, this show captures the golden essence of the band prior to the fall.

The packaging of this piece is a lavish trifold slipcase, with plenty of graphics and pictures over which to pore. The front cover has the band posed in a spoof of The Rolling Stones’ album artwork for Their Satanic Majesties Request, itself a flaccid derivation of The Beatles’ album artwork for Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band.

No more need be said of the technical aspects of this performance other than to observe that the band, including singer, is at the top of its form.

Like other newly-emerged shows, the source tape is a very good audience source, with the excellent instrumental mix being well preserved. The drums occasionally suffer, but the overall effect is very successful. Plant’s voice proves too much for the taper’s microphone, a common problem in the pre-blowout era. Page’s solos are enjoyably clear. There is minor tape hiss, and that only when there are peaks in high frequencies unaccompanied by other sounds, such as during the more strident parts of the guitar solos or Plant’s wailing. In any event, it detracts little from the recording.

The beginning of this tape finds Plant complaining of the flu, just as he did the night before. No reaction from the crowd. The usual twiddling about ensues, with anticipatory giggles greeting Bonham’s tuneup kick drum slams, and Immigrant Song erupts into the night. Plant nails the mood-setting berserker wails with nary a crack or quaver. Immigrant Song finishes emphatically, and, before the audience members can draw a breath to shriek, Heartbreaker bludgeons them back into gasping silence. When Heartbreaker wraps up, there is a noticeable pause before the audience recovers its wits (and breath) sufficiently to applaud.

Black Dog follows, with the now-familiar Out On The Tiles introduction. Plant has already dropped the castrato notes he hit during the verses on the recorded version, most likely in an effort to preserve his voice. By this point in the recording, the discernability of the drums improves to a great extent; accordingly, Since I’ve Been Loving You is a percussive delight. One can always depend on this song to rescue an otherwise-lackluster show from any era, and in a show this excellent and from this particular time, Since I’ve Been Loving You is sublime, a masterpiece of English blues - perhaps the best of that amazing canon.

Celebration Day is introduced in a fashion recalling Johnny Carson and dedicated to New York, “because it’s a good place to go ... quite the opposite.” This rendition is enough to make anyone’s face crack from smiling. There are minor tape rubs/flutters during the instrumental middle, which features a unusual funk-scratch exchange between Page and Plant. Next, Plant excuses the band for a bizarre, momentum-killing interlude during which Bonham’s bass drumskins are replaced following their utter destruction during the first five songs of the set - finished off for good during this song’s funky break.

Although the recording is ambiguous, this calamity must have proved a fortuitous time to commence the acoustic set instead of a reading of Stairway To Heaven, as was done the previous night. A crackling sound (analog? digital?) precedes Page’s strumming and Plant’s wistful, yet wry observations about the end of the hippy dream; but the dream lives, albeit only for a moment, in the form of an evocative and newly-sad Going To California, providing an interesting contrast with the subsequent That’s The Way, Plant’s gentle indictment of intolerance as experienced by his son Karac.

After a brief pause, Page begins Tangerine, only to stop dead after 40 seconds. This halt is labeled a mistake on the packaging, but, in Page’s defense, it is immediately followed by a loud buzz, perhaps the sound of a guitar cord being replugged into an amplifier or guitar after being found to not be fully inserted. He restarts and Tangerine is performed without incident before Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp transforms the proceedings into a clap-along, rip-snorting hoedown. The crowd continues its stomping well after the end of the song.

Disc II contains only two songs (as noted elsewhere, the track entitled “training old style” is merely a Plant sight gag). This fact could be taken as a portent of wretched excess in the not- too-distant future. Here, however, Dazed And Confused is 27 minutes of equal parts taut riffing and expressionistic fury, but always a pure joy to the ears. Demonstrating the enduring hold that Led Zeppelin’s work will always have on popular music, any competent band could mine this song for at least one gold album’s worth of derivative numbers. As the prior night, included in the immensity is an excerpt from Isaac Hayes’ 1971 #1 hit Theme From Shaft, emerging from what would become The Crunge (inclusion of the Hayes quote was rare and short-lived, as the band, perhaps mindful of the Jake Holmes and Willie Dixon situations, soon relied entirely on the proprietary The Crunge as the number’s funk showpiece). Although there was not yet any San Francisco or Woodstock interpolation, Dazed and Confused was obviously now conceived as the set’s centerpiece, both literally and figuratively, and this intent is made apparent in this stormy reading. Imagine the experience of witnessing this performance and this arrangement of Dazed And Confused, before the novelty faded for the band!

Plant’s introduction of Stairway To Heaven is greeted with loud applause. Plant, not as yet jaded, gives a compelling delivery, and the song ascends on the wings of Page’s solo, quick, furious and precise. There is a tiny cut at the very end of the song, followed by rapturous cheers.

What Is And What Should Never Be is given its standard treatment. Page shines best on structured solos (albeit with many notable exceptions), and, as expected, we hear him remaining largely faithful to the studio version this night, with great success.

Page launches Whole Lotta Love without preamble, and it quickly disintegrates into the harrowing nightmare of the Theramin jam, with Page sounding like he’s playing two guitars at once, before being cut briefly at 3:45. The Jam begins with the familiar moans of “One night!” from Just A Little Bit, then shuffles into a droning, wicked-sounding cover of I’m Going Down. This version owes a lot to the Jeff Beck Group version, but actually surpasses that former benchmark cut of this old standard. A sudden pause, and Boogie Woogie resumes, Page hitting every note he attempts during the fast part. Next, in sequence, are Mary Lou, Rave On and Mess O’ The Blues. The final part of the medley is a lengthy, bedrock 12-bar blues number in the manner of You Shook Me, with Plant howling his favorite lemon-squeezing, juice-running, bed- exiting commands in counterpoint (and counterpoise) to Page’s frantic, vibrato-laden stabs of notes. The return to Whole Lotta Love is somewhat a surprise at almost 27 minutes into the affair!

The band leaves the stage to a resounding thunder of clapping, stomping, whistling and shouting - in short, an absolute frenzy. Our quartet is drawn back onstage after a few minutes, and the audience is not shy about making requests; one fellow even shouts for Black Dog before being reminded that it had been played earlier in the set!

Rock And Roll explodes into being and the audience plays along, providing a giant staccato clap to track the bass drum. Plant gives it his all on this number, hitting almost every one of the preternatural notes he hit in the studio. This song is still close to its studio form in most other respects, as well.

This show closes with Communication Breakdown, containing a soulful, Band Of Gypsies-style solo and a funky break before accelerating to a racing finish. The crowd shouts for more; we can only hope for more new shows like this one. (David Montgomery May 2000)



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