LED ZEPPELIN - JULY 17TH SEATTLE TWO TIMES

JULY 17TH 1973

CENTER COLISEUM, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

It was my 3rd Bootleg elpee, Live In Seattle 73. Double album, Xeroxed insert with 'smoking pig' labels. Black vinyl. Much better than the first two - A Cellarful Of Noise and 1975 World Tour - but still in it's own way a listening labour of love. Slightly slow, we get a long, long crowd introduction, but not the announcement about 'optical effects' that emerged a few years later on my first (nearly) complete audience tape.

Although no date is mentioned on the insert, it was generally accepted and circulated this show was from May 1973. Without (at the time) a tour schedule or other bootlegs to compare there was no disputing this. So, despite the overlong crowd intro, heavily edited show and many missing numbers, it soon became a favourite. The track listing is a 'standard' 73 Tour set, The Ocean being the chosen encore tonight.

Incidentally, the title V 1/2 (was a while before I realised it meant 5 and a half!) refers to the belief/rumour the next official elpee was gonna be a live one and this was the bootleggers version of that, hence 5 and a half....

There have been many vinyl reissues, Performed Live In Seattle and On Tour spring to mind, but they're inferior copies (no 100% digital transfers back then!) and there are single elpees of sides 1 & 3 together and a variety of  cheap and nasty pressings from Contraband and other knock off labels.

My CD references to this show begin and end with the excellent Cobla Standard 3CD audience recording set, and with the Soundboard tapes and all manner of issues, I've asked long time friend and collector Paul Sheppard for his thoughts and knowledge and I'm delighted and thankful to say here are his comments -

"The show itself is a blast. Once the second part of the 9th U.S. tour got going (after the sluggish start at Chicago), it arguably reached a high point with the two Detroit shows and after a slight dip at Buffalo, soared back to the heights again at Seattle. Something about this city seemed to have got into the band’s psyche as they almost always performed well there. This show is one of their best along the way. Despite problems with firecrackers during the tour an impassioned plea at the start of the show seems to keep things relatively calm and allows the band to play fresh improvisations of No Quarter and Dazed And Confused. As usual, the closing part of the show through Whole Lotta Love and The Ocean lift the roof off!

There are two audience sources and (likely) two soundboard sources. No CD's have been made that use the first audience source exclusively although it has been used for the LP version. All the CD releases based on the audience source use only the second audience source. These are: V1/2 (Cobra Standard), Grandiloquence (Antrabata), Seattle Daze (Image Quality), & Zep Hakase (Akashic).

A mixture of the two audience sources is used for Complete Seattle (The Diagrams Of Led Zeppelin) & Performed Live In Seattle (Eat A Peach).

With regard to the soundboard, exclusive presentation on CD is available on V 1/2+ (Last Stand), V1/2 Extravaganza (Badgeholders), Best Of Tour 1973 (Forever Standard), Grandiloquence (Antrabata Reference Master), & Monsters Of Rock (Tarantura).

Where the audience (source #2) and soundboard sources have been mixed the titles available are Afterburner (Cashmere), V 1/2 (Empress Valley Supreme Disc), & Performed Live In Seattle (Tarantura2000 & Wendy Records)

My favourite version is Performed Live In Seattle (Eat A Peach) as it offers (for me) the best version of the mixed together audience sources and as I usually prefer audience sources (as they sound more authentic) this does the job well. ‘Eat a Peach’ as far as I am aware are effectively ‘son of Godfather’ so the quality of their output is very good indeed continuing the good works done by the Godfather label in the not too distant past."

Thanks Paul, I'll have to catch up with the Eat A Peach version now! Always a blast of a show, It is to me one of the finest of the tour, a tape I always go back to. 

The teasing intro announcement creates absolute bedlam, and for the first hour or so Led Zeppelin are solid, determined and sound just a little sluggish. There are great moments, don't get me wrong. Jimmy loosens his fingers in Over The Hills, battling Bonzo's powerful syncopation. No Quarter really opens up with a fine instrumental break and wild theremin slabs at the coda.

Dazed has the band pushing and nearly, nearly peaking, but it's Stairway that really soars with a fantastic solo and winsome vocals to match. The closing duo of Heartbreaker and Whole Lotta Love are simply too much, and The Ocean is the icing on this very rich cake. 

Listening once again to this show from start to brilliant finish reaffirms what George Harrison said - "When Led Zeppelin are peaking, kiss your skull goodbye!"

JULY 17TH 1977

KINGDOME, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Four years gone and a world and a lifetime away. Led Zeppelin open the 3rd and final leg of the 11th US 'Magick' Tour with a SRO 60, 000 show at the Enormodome, sorry Kingdome in Seattle. The second leg had ended on a high, albeit with a long weary LA farewell. With 12 shows left to play, Led Zeppelin return from their second tour break and head for the finish line.

But, as we know, picking up the ball after a break takes time, and the result is a sluggish start that slowly and agonisingly picks up momentum. At first it's like pushing a boulder uphill -  Homer Simpson with the stone of triumph.  As a show the set is again standard for the tour, and pushing 3 hours 20 minutes as the decadence creeps in and threatens to hamstring the momentum at times.

Many many years ago old friend and fellow Zeppelin collector Laurence Dyer had a poster from this show, featuring an animated if 'tired and emotional' Jimmy leaping in the air in front of a huge TV camera. We knew then that one day the footage would appear. 

It took the MTV specials in 1990 to get a few tiny snippets of Stairway and Achilles, and almost a decade later - after years and years of rumours and counter rumours of hoarding and such like - the final half an hour turned up. Then the first 2 hours. Then a bit more. Finally the complete show in watchable, then fair, then good quality.

Now, it's been around on DVD with 'enhanced' visuals. At the end of the day it's not the 1977 show of choice, but it's what we've got. Amongst the sometimes overwhelming dullness there are some moments and performances to savour. 

No Quarter and the acoustic set are great and great fun. The band are relaxed and joking around. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp is extended thanks to a broken guitar string, with Jonesy squeezing a solo out of his tuppenny upright and Robert hamming it up with snatches of Mac The Knife.

Kashmir is the stellar highlight, sturm und drang and a drama in itself. Bonzo's solo is great to watch if less tha inspired solo but bittersweet as it's the last one he performed onstage with Led Zeppelin. After that Jimmy's solo tests everyone's patience as it slips from awesome to tedious, from inspired to insipid. 

Achilles Last Stand then takes us where we want to go. Retina burning white light and an energy thought beyond them at this stage of the game. Stairway To Heaven is also fantastic, Jimmy moving mountains in an extended solo that Luis Rey rightly notes is much better than the Earls' Court May 25th performance on 'DVD'.

This show was auditioned for 'DVD' but didn't make it. Sometimes you have to remember a great quality bootleg is still a million miles from a 'good enough quality' official release.  There have been numerous CD and DVD bootlegs of this show, even some audio sets from the better of the 3 or 4 circulating audience recordings.

 

Not a show I'd pick from the tour by far, but ANY Led Zeppelin has moments to treasure, even in their darkest moments. Remember Greensboro '75??!