LED ZEPPELIN - BERLIN JULY 19TH 1970 - THE ONLY WAY TO FLY

Concluding their too brief 4 day stint across Germany, Led Zeppelin arrive in Berlin for their debut performance in the city. Over the years there has been much speculation and uncertainty about this tour and dates, some confusion with the earlier tour the previous March didn't help. 

It was set up as a warm-up for the upcoming 6th US Tour, routining the new numbers and set arrangement now Whole Lotta Love replaced How Many More Times as the set finale. Although incomplete and not too great quality it's a great performance. What we have is - 

Immigrant Song/Heartbreaker

Dazed And Confused

Bring It On Home

Since I've Been Loving You

Thank You

What Is And What Should Never Be

Whole Lotta Love - medley includes:-

Boogie Chillun'/I've Got A Girl (Red House)/Lemon Song/C C Rider/Down In Virginia/I'm a Man/Hootchie Cootchie Man/Honey Bee/Long Distance Call/Needle Blues (ThinkYou Need A Shot)

Communication Breakdown (only a small fragment)

The original circulating C90 had a chunk of a live version of Moby Dick, but it sounds different to the rest of the recording. From the Bath and upcoming US Tour set, not to mention some of Bonzo's quotes regarding this mini-tour, it's a fair assumption That's The Way and possibly Bron-Yr-Aur were performed, as well as a Jonesy solo before Thank You.

The songs are stretching more and more, Dazed And Confused is an impressive muscular version, clocking in at over 17 minutes. The other standouts include a now fully formed and dramatic Since I've Been Loving You and a dramatic and unique Whole Lotta Love Medley, full of wonderful and obscure blues references and another expanding marathon at 17 minutes as well.

With the Theremin chaos now part of the arrangement, there's a hint of the future Everybody Needs Somebody To Love riff before Jimmy's solo before we're into the medley. Jimmy flies throughout,the rest of the guys hanging on as he takes Robert's vocal leads and squeezes everything out of them.

Sadly there's only a fragment of Communication Breakdown, and we could be missing more, even some of the stand alone rock n roll classics brought out as encores earlier in the year. 

A really enjoyable listen, it bridges the gap from the triumph of Bath and the upcoming stadium shows in the US. The first CD version I saw was the 2CD release Checkpoint Charlie on Immigrant, which adds Moby Dick and makes it a double set,  but the Intimate (Almost Mysterious) 2 disc set on Equinox is better plus it adds 4 tracks from the scarce AM radio broadcast of part of the Montreux March 7th show.

One final thing, we've also got Chris Welch's wonderful 8mm cine film which documents the German tour and includes not only scenes of Berlin but about 90 seconds of colour footage of Dazed And Confused from this show.