The Daily Procrastinator

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.

Greetings, procrastinators! As you may have noticed, there was no Weekly Wrap-Up last week. Frankly, I procrastinated. I consider it my duty to let procrastination interfere with my work every now and again. Practicing what I preach, you know… Anyway, the past two weeks on The Daily Procrastinator have been as fruitful as ever, and this is your chance to make sure you didn’t miss a word of TDP’s enlightening content. Let’s consider one subject at a time.

Food: The first tasty post of the week came from BigRedPoet, who considered it his duty to make the world (or at least the world of procrastinators) aware of the glory of Squeez Bacon. Even though Magnus rained on the parade in comments, Squeez Bacon is still a great idea. TallGirl, no doubt inspired by the tantalizing possibility of a meat condiment, continued the bacon orgy with a celebration of the myocardial-infarction-inducing dish known as the Bacon Explosion. Imagine it topped with Squeez Bacon, if you dare.

Entertainment: On April 27, BigRedPoet posted a review/celebration of Led Zeppelin’s historic 1969 show in San Francisco, complete with a FANTASTIC photograph of the young Zeps doing their thing on stage. A few days later, FlashCap (he lives!) bemoaned the disparity between the comic book characters readers have come to know and love and the characters who appear on-screen in recent Marvel movies.

Technology: Magnus, assisted by a mysterious figure known only as Z, posted a list of quick-fixes and tweaks that will whip your PC into tip-top Springtime condition. I’ve used several of them already, with fantastic results. In a completely different branch of technology, BigRedPoet examined the difference between “awesome” and “lame,” as applied to three-wheeled transportation.

This picture requires no explanation. Not THIS week...

Current Events: TallGirl piped up as the voice of reason in the face of the swine-flu inspired hysteria that’s literally dominating the television and radio waves this week. I prefer TallGirl’s point of view over the popular panic. Note the irony of two bacon-inspired posts in the days preceding the swine flu outbreak.

This Crazy Life: TDP’s resident social commentator, TallGirl, weighed in on several topics in the past two weeks. She started with cosmetic surgery in suburbia. Later, she pondered the proper ratio of cream to coffee…or is that the ratio of coffee to cream? Finally, she revealed how people’s perceptions of a friend or neighbor can change simply through the revelation of a pair of enticing underpants.

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The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

Greetings, procrastinators. Today, April 27, 2009, marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most legendary performances in rock and roll history. Forty years ago tonight, a young Led Zeppelin played the final show of a four-night stand in San Francisco.

The arrival of the mighty Zeppelin was foretold by humble print ads in local newspapers and music magazines.

Led Zeppelin rose from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page’s previous band, and they began playing together in September of 1968. The band’s amazing performances in San Francisco in 1969 are all the more impressive when the listener considers that they’d played together for just a few short months before invading America’s west coast.

You may ask, “How can you be so sure that this one particular show was great, BRP?” The explanation is simple: The April 27, 1969 show was recorded by two different fans. One recorded from the audience, and the other was able to attach his recorder to the soundboard. Both of these recordings circulate in the Led Zeppelin collecting community, separately and spliced together to recreate the complete show. I have listened to the audience tape, the soundboard tape, and the “collage” tape, and I feel confident proclaiming this show one of the greatest in rock and roll history.

A young, bluesy, grungy Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on stage in 1969

Check out the setlist for the early show:

• Train Kept A’Rollin’
• I Can’t Quit You Baby
• As Long As I Have You (medley includes Fresh Garbage, Shake, Cat’s Squirrel, No Money Down, and I’m A Man)
• You Shook Me
• How Many More Times
• Communication Breakdown

As if that wasn’t enough to blow the audience away, here’s the late set:

• Killing Floor
• Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You
• White Summer/Black Mountainside
• Sitting And Thinking
• Pat’s Delight
• Dazed And Confused

The first set is a blistering, energetic salvo. Every member of the band is in overdrive: John Bonham’s drums are thunderous, John Paul Jones’ bass lines are punchy and complex, Jimmy Page’s guitar sounds like an entire string section, and Robert Plant’s wailing voice reaches seemingly impossible notes. The “As Long As I Have You” medley showcases a young band just having some fun playing the radio songs that were popular in their native England at the time.

The second set is slower and more blues-based, but that doesn’t make it any less astounding. This is the only recorded performance of Otis Rush’s “Sitting and Thinking.” Page’s solo guitar work in “White Summer/Black Mountainside” is a fine complement to Bonham’s drum solo in “Pat’s Delight,” the song which would eventually become “Moby Dick.” The evening ends with an especially dark and moody “Dazed And Confused.” By this time, the listener is completely wrung out. Live recordings of Led Zeppelin demand engagement from the listener, not just passive hearing. The band leads the audience on a 130-minute musical journey, and that journey is exhausting.

Live recordings of Led Zeppelin can be a little difficult to find, but they’re out there. If you’re a fan, do yourself a favor and hunt down the April 27, 1969 show. I’ve listened to hundreds of shows, and this is my single favorite. If you don’t look for the show, at least put some Zep on your CD player tonight and hoist a drink to the greatest rock band in history.