Happy Anniversary, Led Zeppelin!
As you may have discerned by now, procrastinators, I’m a bit of a Led Zeppelin fan. By “a bit” I mean that I own all of their studio recordings, often wear one my dozen or so Zep t-shirts, have the “four symbols” decals on the back window of my truck, and spent years collecting every concert recording of the band that’s known to exist. In total, counting the instances in which there are multiple recordings of the same show, I have over 500 Led Zeppelin concerts on a freestanding hard drive called “The Archive.”
I’m not telling you all of this because I want you to be impressed (although I wouldn’t mind if you were). I’m telling you this so you’ll know that I’ve listened to more Led Zeppelin than anyone you’ve ever met. With that in mind, I feel qualified to make the following statement: Today, September 29, is the 38th anniversary of one of the greatest rock concerts of all time.
On September 29 of 1971, Led Zeppelin performed at the Festival Hall in Osaka, Japan. Known among ZepHeads simply as “929,” it was the final night of their first-ever tour of Japan, and, for lack of a more appropriate phrase, they played their asses off. Check out the setlist:
- Immigrant Song
- Heartbreaker
- Since I’ve Been Loving You
- Black Dog
- Dazed And Confused
- Stairway To Heaven
- Celebration Day
- That’s The Way
- Going To California
- Tangerine
- Friends
- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
- What Is And What Should Never Be
- Moby Dick
- Whole Lotta Love
- Communication Breakdown
- Organ Solo/Thank You
- Rock And Roll
The legendary untitled fourth album had not yet been released, but the Japanese fans were treated to previews of soon-to-be famous songs like “Stairway to Heaven,” “Black Dog,” and “Rock and Roll.”
Tonight’s show features no shortage of the incredibly long songs for which Led Zeppelin concerts were famous. The band’s improvisational showcase, “Dazed and Confused,” clocks in at just over 30 minutes. Jimmy Page played a middle section of the “Dazed” solo with a violin bow throughout the band’s career, and tonight’s solo is one of the darkest and eeriest-sounding in the band’s entire recorded catalog.
This photo of of the bow solo is actually from a concert on the '71 Japan tour. WHICH night? Well, that's lost to history.
“Moby Dick,” as ever, is a 20 minute experiment in sonic assault. John Bonham plays the drums with the kind of force most people reserve for driving fence posts. The final “epic” of the evening, “Whole Lotta Love,” exceeds 30 minutes itself. As usual, the band turns it into a medley of 50s and 60s hits. Tonight, the medley includes “Boogie Woogie,” “Tossin’ & Turnin,” “Twist & Shout,” and “Fortune Teller,” along with sections of their own songs “You Shook Me” and “Good Times Bad Times.”
This show features another noteworthy moment in Led Zeppelin history: as the band ends the acoustic set with “Friends” and prepares to launch back into fully electrified rock and roll, Robert Plant fills the time by treating the audience to an impromptu version of The Platters’ “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” a song not known to exist anywhere else in the band’s recorded history.
That's right. The Platters. Robert Plant digs MoTown.
The entire show clocks in at just under three hours, and it’s a fantastic listening experience. The vast majority of the show has been preserved on what is widely and erroneously known as “the soundboard source.” Although the recording is clearly not from the soundboard, it is a truly fantastic audience tape. General consensus holds that a microphone was somehow placed on stage with the band. In places where the primary source has cuts or dropouts, they are smoothly filled with slightly inferior but very listenable alternate sources. At least three separate source tapes are known to exist for this show, so the listener never misses a moment. Listening to a well-crafted import release of the show, like Wendy Records’ “Fatally Wanderer” is as close as most of us will ever come to seeing the mighty Zeppelin at one of the highest points in their career.
Sure, I have other things to do tonight. I fully intend to ignore those things (it’s The Daily Procrastinator, right?) and spend three hours with the greatest rock band ever to walk the face of the earth. You should join me.
32 Responses to “Happy Anniversary, Led Zeppelin!”
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