LED ZEPPELIN Mothership.

heiney9

headrott wrote: »

The L.A. June 21st 1977 was absolutely one of these great perfomances. One of the best Zeppelin shows I have heard, period. Check it out if you have the chance.

Greg

Yep, although I wouldn't go as far as their greatest performance. It's in the top 5 for sure and certainly the best of 1977 without a doubt. Every Zep fan should hear this recording. Snippets of audio as well as about 10 seconds of video appear on the DVD during some some of menu background stuff. IIRC, TSRTS is playing...........it's amateur 8mm footage synched up with the bootleg audio.

Norm Apter wrote: »

Is that the one known as "Listen to this Eddie" in certain circles? If so, I have it on my hard drive but haven't burned it to CD-R yet. I know many have spoken fondly of that show, and yeah -- from what I've heard -- that would be an example of how they could really still turn in a great performance here and there.

Yep, and there is a very recent upgraded audio version that is simply stellar. Just when I thought the original couldn't get any better.

I can share the story of how this and many other concerts were captured at The Forum by a unique individual who is no longer with us. He committed suicide about 5-7 years ago. I don;t want to derail this thread too much, but if there's interest I can tell the story.

H9

P.s. Bonham's drumming at this concert is "other worldly", how he played at that pace for over 3 hours I'll never comprehend. Simply an amazing performance. With the opening of TSRTS he is drumming in almost triple time, the fills are simply incredible and he pushes the band along and they have no choice but to keep up, and they DO!!!!!!

heiney9

Get me going on Led Zep and live stuff...............and I can write volumes. I get really pumped up and carried away sometimes

Norm Apter

heiney9 wrote: »

I can share the story of how this and many other concerts were captured at The Forum by a unique individual who is no longer with us. He committed suicide about 5-7 years ago. I don;t want to derail this thread too much, but if there's interest I can tell the story.

H9

-- Sorry Nooshinjon, last derail...I promise --

Was this the guy (Mike Mullard or something like that) who used to enter concerts in a wheelchair (even though he wasn't physically disabled) to get up to the front row and had a fairly intricate recording contraption set up and even a helper, right? If thats him, I didn't realize he isn't with us any more.

heiney9

Yes, Mike Mullard bootleg recordings are legendary. He started out with a cheap Sears recorder and quickly bought a portable Nakamichi deck. He was in a wheelchair with the portable player on his lap under a layer of blankets. He recorded many of the artists who came to the LA Forum and a few other venues.

He was extremely tight within the trading circles back then and he only traded with people he knew and trusted. He used to "mark" his recordings by putting fades or drop-outs in different places for each tape he traded. This way if they ever made it to the commercial bootleggers he would know which person sold it to them and he'd cut them off of future trading as well as admonish them. He despised the commercial bootleggers.

He lived with his Mom even as an adult and he was prone to wild swings of depression. He still had all his original masters (well most of them) when he took his own life. His Mother eventually destroyed all the tapes even after multiple requests from many within his inner trading circle offering her $$$ to buy them. So what ever is out there is all there is left of the famous "Mullard Masters". He recorded about 2 dozen popular bands in the 70's and was almost a permanent figure at the LA Forum.

I wonder how many performances were destroyed that never saw the light of day after his death.

H9

heiney9

Norm Apter wrote: »

Yeah, wasn't Jimmy strung out on heroin through the '77 tour (hence, the infamous white poppy suit he donned on stage)? Page's sloppiness, presumably from his heroin habit, seems to be one of the reasons why they were off -- also Plant's voice really changed after '73 and perhaps Plant couldn't really get back to his level of focus after he suffered the tragedy of his son's death in '75.

I've seen a pic of Page sitting next to U.S. tour manager Richard Cole on the Zep's private jet in '77 with these movie star-like oversized sunglasses, a large drink in his hand, and a devious grin on his face. It seems to sort of capture the state of mind he was in at that time.

Some say that it was still possible for Zep to turn in a good performance in '77, but these were few and far between.

There were a lot of reasons for the poor '77 performances. But, yes a major one was drug abuse and alcohol abuse also remember the 1977 tour was cut short due to the death of Robert's 5 year old son Karac. He died of a mysterious viral infection. That just about put the band out of commission permanently.

In 1975 Robert and his family were almost killed in a rental car accident. She (Maureen, his wife) was driving a rented car along a narrow road when it skidded and slammed into a tree; she suffered facial lacerations, a fractured skull and multiple fractures in her pelvis and her leg.

Robert Plant survived the crash with a fractured elbow and a severely damaged ankle. In the back-seat, 7-year-old daughter Carmen Plant had a broken wrist, cuts and bruises, while her 4-year-old brother Karac had a fractured leg, cuts and bruises. Scarlet, Jimmy Page's daughter, was unharmed.

This was almost the end as well because Robert was confined to a wheel chair and became depressed that he would never be able to perform on stage again. The album "Presence" was recorded with him in a wheel chair and he had to go through some intense physical therapy. They didn't tour the latter part of 1975 or all of 1976 because of this. That's also when Jimmy had time to mix and release the movie "The Song Remains The Same"

The long layoff, drug abuse, complacency, lack of confidence, lack of drive, all contributed to the up and down nature of the 1977 tour. The death of Karac only had them performing 4 shows in 1979 and no shows in 1978. Two of the shows in 1979 being the Knebworth Festival. Again, unrehearsed, long layoff, lack of confidence because they hadn't played in their home country since Earls Court in 1975 and the advent of Punk Music taking over the rock scene. Led Zep got the label as "Dinosaurs".

H9

hearingimpared

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I should have mentioned that the turntable used was my Yamaha PX-3, and the cartridge installed is a Denon DL-160 with about 300hrs on the stylus. The table was checked for level, tracking force and angle and was set up properly. The noise I am describing sounds like "tape hiss". I may have been wrong to term it white noise. I was only trying to describe the backround noise differences between the two recordings, which is significant. As I stated in my comparison, along with a reduced backround noise, the soundstage on Mothership collapsed as well.

Good now that we're settle on the fact that it is hiss, I have to tell you this John, the Denon DL-160 is a high output moving coil cartridge. Two things; 1) if you do not have the proper resistive loading you will get hiss and some other strange sounds that are not music. 2) the Denon being a high output cartridge, the gain setting that you have in your phono stage could be too high, this will definitely cause hiss.

If you can PM the specs and options of your phono pre as well as the recommened resistive load that Denon recommends, we can eliminate these issues I've presented as the posible problem or dial them in so that the hiss can be eliminated.:)

nooshinjohn

I went over setup with a guy from Rogue and with Mr. C, so I know that that angle is well covered and correct as well.

comfortablycurt

Brock-Some very good Zep info there, thanks for posting it!

heiney9

comfortablycurt wrote: »

Brock-Some very good Zep info there, thanks for posting it!

Mullard taped a lot of Floyd shows as well in the 70's.

hearingimpared

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I went over setup with a guy from Rogue and with Mr. C, so I know that that angle is well covered and correct as well.

Good nuff!:)

nooshinjohn

Norm Apter wrote: »

-- Sorry Nooshinjon, last derail...I promise --

The topic went off the rails a long time ago.:p:rolleyes:

It's all good as I am learning so much about the best way to enjoy Zep... Carry on!

:cool::D