Led Zeppelin: The 'Tight But Loose' Files

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The crowds were receptive and appreciative. All acts received applause and many more were asked for encores – Led Zeppelin played for one hour and 10 minutes – the audience wouldn’t let them leave.” The Houses of The Holy funk parody is a brave choice and hardly an obvious one. Beth navigates her way around the offbeat time signatures with aplomb bringing a Janis like drawl to proceedings. Given this ambitious stance it strikes me that the album would have benefited with more adventurous covers rather than some of the expected big hitters. Like is said, this is an incredible archive of hours of historically significant Led Zeppelin radio broadcasts

February 14th has been the date of a fair few Zep related happenings over the years, not least for it being the second night of the aforementioned and rightly acclaimed Nassau Coliseum gigs in 1975. This show has been released as a soundboard recording, notably on Godfatherecords recent box set Throwing The Wild Seeds. The 6 CD box set also has the previous night’s recording when they were joined on stage by Ronnie Wood for an encore performance of Communication BreakdownFor this is much more than a mere record – it’s been a lifelong companion to me through ups and downs. Not just a mere record but for me a way of life. And what a 93 minute experience it is. It sounds incredible – so warm and precise, the instrumentation so well defined. Giles Martin has made a great iconic work even greater… 50 years on there are still new revelations in to be heard in this work of genius… Aside from Zep, I’d list Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours, Burt Bacharach’s Hitmaker, Otis Redding Oits Blue,Dusty Springfield In Memphis and David Bowie’s Young Americans as definitive Valentine’s Day play.

I’ve had this show for some years on the audience recording Can’t Take Your Evil Ways (Diagrams Of Led Zeppelin). In 2001 it then surfaced on the Empress Valley label as Flying Circus as a very well balanced soundboard recording. This was a revelation at the time and I recall a very excited Mark Harrison ringing me to tell me how good it was. And it is good -very good indeed and playing it today the whole thing sounded great. This is the point where the US tour really began to take off. As it turned out we had to wait 31 years before it surfaced in May 2003. I always felt the original How The West Was Won release got somewhat lost as it was released simultaneously alongside the marathon five hour official DVD set. Firsly the acoustic set is embellished with the addition of the audience recorded version of Tangerine. The Whole Lotta medley is presented in a combination of the official soundboard plus audience inserts. This adds audience sourced versions of Heartbreak Hotel and Slow Down. The latter a frantic rendering of the Larry William’s number covered by The Beatles on their Long Tall Sally EP, is as the forensic Mike T notes in the Evenings With LZ entry the only known version performed by Zep and therefore is most welcome. As a final bonus there’s three performances from the previous night’s gig and very interesting selections they are too. The smooth low key jazz work out Melody with Billy Preston, the reggae guitar strut of Luxury and Worried About You – a then work in progress slow burner that would eventually see the light of day on the 1981 Tattoo you set.That vocal telepathy was certainly in evidence on the brilliant House Of Cards, the Richard Thompson song covered on the Band Of Joy album (”a song that means a lot to us” remarked Robert) which had a light and shade all of it’s own -. equally shared by Robert and Suzi in total harmony. A frantic set opener Train Kept a Rollin’ segues into a masterful I Can’t Quite You Baby. Robert’s vocal performance throughout is outstanding – his confidence was growing with every gig and if he was trying to impress the watching Janis Joplin – he more than succeeded. This was the second day of the launch of the revised version of my Then As it Was Led Zeppelin At Knebworth 1979 book at the two day VIP Musicmania Fair at Olympia. This presented a major dilemma for me. Tension was mounting and the Pye Records representative who called on the WH Smith record department I worked at told me he had been invited to this secret Zep appearance. We can hear the remarkable development of Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1) through Mono Mix RM 11 – the evolution of Got to Get You Into My Life from First Version) [take 5]to take 8 – the fascinating Rain (Take 5 – Actual Speed) and then Rain (Take 5 – Slowed Down for Master Tape),

The Beatle big hitters are all present and correct and there’s also an illuminating focus on lesser known gems particularly from the Wings and solo catalogue. The likes of Magnito And Titanium Man, Country Dreamer , Once Upon a Long Ago, Getting Closer, Put It There, Single Pigeon, Arrow Through Me, Mrs Vandebilt, Café On The Left Bank, Woman And Wives and I’m Carrying are given renewed attention and will no doubt inspire a return to those songs and albums they appear on here in the coming weeks.Very pleasingly, this new set also adds the audience recorded encores of Louie Louie, the JPJ organ solo, Thank you and a brilliantly manic Communication Breakdown closer.