Remember a few months ago when we had the brief discussion of "Smoke On
The Water," about how Deep Purple were recording in Montreux when an
idiot fan with a flare gun fired a flare into the acoustic-cloth ceiling
of the Montreux Casino Theater, and burned it down during a Frank Zappa
show...  And of course that brought up the classic show that Led
Zeppelin played on August 8, 1971, just before the Zappa show in
question.  And that brings up the story of Peter Grant's generosity, of
how he saw hundreds of fans unable to get tickets just camped out on the
lawn in front of the venue to listen to what they could hear from
there.  Peter magnanimously had PA speakers set up outside and broadcast
the concert onto the lawn for the fans who rallied to support his band.
See, Peter LOVED fans, it's true!  And the recording of the show was
alright, taken from a source that was taped in front of these PA
speakers, and you could hear the sound get better when the doors opened
from time to time.

Many reviews of this show lament that there is no higher-quality source
for such an awesome show - Led Zeppelin is at full throttle, tearing
through maybe the first live Celebration Day, and a rare teaser of
Ramble On.  Well, someone else was taping that night, according to my
source.  Inside the arena.  And, brothers and sisters, with a little
helping hand from TimD, you can hear it pretty much the way it was heard
on the night.  In fact, unless I'm a total fool (possible,) I think the
tape authenticates itself - it contains one of the most bizarre oddities
I've ever heard on a bootleg.  I thought I couldn't possibly be hearing
it, but I'm sure of it and I'll explain why.  This recording exhibits
forward echo.  More specifically, I'm positive that the recording was
made from inside the building, because deep in the background, when you
turn the remastered version way up high, *you can hear Peter's PA
speakers outside* on almost a full second delay, one would assume both
from the extreme length of the cables for the speakers, and the time it
takes sound to travel back into the hall.  At first I thought it was an
odd remastering thing, like I had some sort of reverberation or
harmonics or ghost-images on the tape - anything but that.  But it's the
only thing that makes sense.  You can only hear it in soft passages,
mostly of Robert singing - the band or the crowd drowns it out most of
the time.  If it were a reverb or harmonic the whole band would
presumably be doing it, making the recording a bloody mess.  Plus, it
does it with all the effects turned off.  So it's real.  This is an
inside tape.

And what a tape.  The band launches to a hot Immigrant Song, just like
the album, and then straight into Heartbreaker.  The band is absolutely
incredible this night.  Robert has had a few weeks off and sounds like
the Golden God - one truly spectacular performance for Percy as he hits
every high note and roars like the banshee of 1968.  You have got to
hear this Heartbreaker solo.  Jimmy absolutely destroys it, pulling off
a note-perfect hammer-on pull-off display with ease, and the band
absolutely stings it coming back in at "Worked so hard to turn it
around, get some money saved," one of the most consistently powerful
Zeppelin moments over the years.  A brief hello from Robert to Montreaux
and Claude Nobs precedes a bleeding-hot "Since I've Been Lovin' You"
with somewhat screechy keyboards but Bonham laying it down in classic
fashion - it seems almost odd to say we take this for granted, but I
guess it's hard to find ways to praise John Bonham that aren't
repetitive - but I'll say it here again, loud as I can - John Bonham is
the engine that makes Led Zeppelin go.  Jason, great as he is and as
much as we all believe in him...  his old man just had it, whatever *it*
is for drummers.  Jason has it, just not as much of it.  Know what I
mean?  And this is the comparison that he's handled with grace for all
these years.  Back to business. The old man is absolutely killing it on
SIBLY, stomping his way through, his bass pedal at the end sounding like
a heartbroken Robert beating on the door of his own house at midnight,
and Robert wails his way through the end of the song.

Again, Robert really is bringing it tonight and Jimmy is
feeding off him this time, giving Robert room to
improvise and make up lyrics, extending "Black Dog," which might be the
best recorded version I've ever heard.  I'm not sure why, but Jimmy's
tone is better on Black Dog than I've ever heard it during the signature
riff - maybe it's because Jonesy is behind him, *deep*, on every single
note.  It just plain sounds better, harder, with more roar than maybe
even the studio track, and certainly any other live version, on a song
that in my opinion often didn't sound very good live.  I wonder why they
changed it.  Huge roar from the crowd for a song they've never heard before.

With no further ado, the mighty Zeppelin slams into "Dazed and
Confused," Jonesy booming through the theater and the countryside
outside and Bonham...  well, he did always enjoy Montreaux.  The band
really really spanks the ending, and Robert gives Jimmy his due to the
roar of the crowd...  and then it's quiet.

An odd, warbly tease of what's to come from Jimmy and no applause from
the silent crowd for the introduction of "Stairway to Heaven," which
means to me that they hadn't heard the fourth album yet.  Of course not
- the album doesn't come out until November.  So not only a scorching
Heartbreaker and maybe a best-ever Black Dog, you get a
pre-album-release Stairway.  This is starting to shape up as a pretty
good show.  Jimmy makes mistakes playing around with the intro, and I
don't think the lyrics are completely set yet, Robert changing small
words here and there.  It comes together nicely very early though, and
through the first movement is turning out very nice.  Robert, my
goodness, is singing he still loves the song, even though he blows the
"bustle in your hedgerow" line, the crowd is starting to roar underneath
the band as they realize what they're hearing.  Smooth transition and
Bonzo handles the move into the hard section smoothly and appears to be
playing his ass off - the tape suffers here from some reason and then
comes back, like someone's muffling the microphone, and damn! there's a
sloppy finger-on-the-reel Millard Marking in the middle of Jimmy's
extremely hot solo.  The song ends majestically to a roar from an
appreciative crowd.

A cut in the tape gets us to Going To California, which Robert
introduces "for better or worse" - I think he feels like the new
material is going a little rough after the mistakes at the beginning of
Stairway.  But GTC is gorgeous as always, and the tape is back close to
that original quality as Robert's voice soars and Jimmy's acoustic rings
through the hall.  Not the cleanest time Jimmy's ever played it, and
Robert's late in at least once.

Wanna take the time to mention that this engineering job is going to
sound best turned up LOUD.  I just couldn't help it - I had this fucker
cranked to eleven the entire time I was working the show.  My God, what
a show.  Anyway...

There's an ugly blank spot on the tape before That's The Way with some
mic banging - I've edited it out and the tape sounds gapless now.  I
didn't see the need to leave in a bunch of boomy banging noises with
nothing going on behind them, so I took them out.  No motive here, I'm
not marking the show or anything.  <lol>  Shades of The Battle of
Evermore in Jimmy's playing during the middle part of the song.  And
I'll be damned if I don't hear chunks of Swan Song at the end, not to
mention an extremely famous Everly Brothers lick.

After the song Robert says something in French, and then something that
sounds like "Give me the microphone" and then announces that someone is
making a bootleg album this afternoon - makes a comment about someone
thinking they're not capitalists.

Of course, Celebration Day and What Is And What Should Never Be
electrify the crowd.  A note about the remaster here - another masterer
left notes on a very good job he did that stated he speed-corrected the
portion of the show between Going To California and Whole Lotta Love.  I
listened to it over and over and didn't feel the need to speed correct
anything.  I'm not criticizing his job, I'm just saying I didn't hear
enough to make that change.

The Whole Lotta Love medley is as bluesy as I've ever heard it, and damn
long, with a really unusual intro that gets the crowd clapping and then
roaring when they finally recognize it.  It's exactly the thing to
remind you that this band was playing You Shook Me and ICQYB just a year
or so ago, and by the time they get back to WLL some 21 minutes later,
well, I'm sure Bonham is out of breath, and the crowd is absolutely
going bonkers.  The show finishes with Weekend, the band really
finishing it off and playing hard until the end.

The guy who gave me this described it like this - "i picked up from
'Collector' - he got his DAT from 'Transferrer' who transfered his DAT
from the tapes - unlike the first torrent, - mine is noticeably clearer
- significantly less hiss - and brighter to my ears...   ...I do believe
this show was recorded INSIDE rather than outside - I guess well never
know - the evidence from the recording points, in my opinion to the
former however"

That would make the lineage Master > DAT (Transferrer) > DAT (Collector)
> CD-R (Supplier) > CD-R (TimD) > PC via EAC (TimD's PC) > Adobe 
Audition 3 > WAV > FLAC(8) via EAC.

This is the source previously remastered by Eddie Edwards.
Re-remastered by me at the suggestion of the anonymous supplier.  He
also complimented Eddie's work and simply thought it was time someone
gave it the full EQ treatment.

Speaking of which, I'm not going to lie to you at all about what's been
done here - this recording has been twisted and turned through the
vagaries of Adobe Audition 3, which is an extremely powerful mixing and
mastering tool.  It's been subjected to balancing of the channels,
amplification (without compression,) three consecutive layers of graphic
EQ, adaptive noise reduction to reduce the tape hiss produced by
amplification and EQing, a slight amount of reverb to open up the
recording, plus Mastering-EQ, stereo-channel width adjustment, and a
full-output gain.  And even then, there are sections that don't sound as
good as others.  Rather than attempting to shift around with a million
event-EQs I've tried to create one good level for the whole show without
making other parts suffer.  Probably works best with Heartbreaker and
not-as-well with Celebration Day, but pretty damn nice overall.

So again, a new and/or improved set for The TimD Series.  Honey, get it
while ya can...


Led Zeppelin
Montreux, Switzerland
August 7, 1971
"Led Zeppelin A Montreux: Bon Public"
A TimD Series production

Lineage:
Master > DAT (Transferrer) > DAT (Collector) >
CD-R (Supplier) > CD-R (TimD) > PC via EAC (TimD's PC) >
Adobe Audition 3 > WAV > FLAC(8) via EAC.

Setlist:

Disc 1:
1  Immigrant Song (4:23)
2  Heartbreaker (6:46)
3  Since I've Been Lovin' You (7:43)
4  Black Dog (6:03)
5  Dazed and Confused (18:21)
6  Stairway To Heaven (10:51)
7  Going To California (5:00)
8  That's The Way (6:46)
9  Celebration Day (5:05)
10 What Is And What Should Never Be (4:31)

Disc 2:
1  Whole Lotta Love (22:57)
     Blues Medley
2  Weekend (3:29)

Special thanks to the taper, the anonymous source, Eddie Edwards for 
leaving good notes on your previous work, FBO and the members of The 
TimD Series, Claude Nobs, Peter Grant and Led Zeppelin.

TimD