Countdown to the Celebration Day…18 days to go.

To mark the impending momentous worldwide screening of the Led Zeppelin Ahmet Ertegun 02 reunion concert on October 17th, we are counting down to the day with a daily Celebration Day Newsletter post. This will feature relevant news and updates plus the TBL Countdown Collection – a daily celebration of Zep moments, memories and artefacts.

BARNEY HOSKYNS FABER & FABER LED ZEPPELIN NIGHT

The recently published Barney Hoskyn’s book Trampled Under Foot –The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin, is subject of another launch event in London on Monday night. Here’s the details:

RBP, in association with Faber & Faber, presents a LED ZEPPELIN NIGHT at the FABER SOCIAL on MONDAY OCTOBER 1ST at 7 pm at the Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD.

Reading, signing and lively debate featuring the author of new Zep oral history TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT  plus NME legends KEITH ALTHAM and CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY, former Zep road manager PHIL CARLO and other special guests…

http://www.thesocial.com

I intend to be at this event and look forward to all that can make it along.

 ON THIS DAY:

On this day in 1971 Led Zeppelin performed the final show of their Japanese tour – and it was one of the all time great Zep live performances.

Here’s Mike Tremaglio’s tour log of this show as featured in TBL issue 30:

September 29, 1971, Koseinenkin Kaikan (Festival Hall), Osaka, Japan

Setlist (from 175, 178 & 93 minute recordings):

Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker (incl. The 59^th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)), Since I’ve Been Loving You, Out on the Tiles (Intro)/ Black Dog, Dazed and Confused (incl. ?, Pennies from Heaven), 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 Medley (incl. ?, Boogie Chillun’, I Gotta Know, Twist and Shout, Fortune Teller, Good Times Bad Times, You Shook Me), Communication Breakdown (incl. Just a Little Bit), Organ Solo, Thank You, Rock and Roll

 The fifth and final show of the Japan tour is renowned as being one of the band’s all-time great shows.  The performance is incredible, and the band continued to surprise the audience throughout the evening with rarely, if ever, played gems.  Fortunately, the concert had been captured for posterity on an excellent sounding, but imbalanced recording.  It is often referred to as a soundboard recording due to its outstanding on-stage feel and stereo separation, but that is still being debated.  Regardless, it is a recording that is on the top shelf of every Led Zeppelin aficionado’s CD racks, ready for repeated listening pleasure.

There are quite a few surprises during the performance, but one of the key highlights of the evening has to be the one and only known performance of Friends during the acoustic set.  After this rarity, Plant sings a few bars of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes; earlier in the show, Page dropped Pennies from Heaven into Dazed and Confused.  Both of these tracks were ‘one and only’ performances, adding to the special atmosphere of the evening.

Once again, the Whole Lotta Love medley, tracking in at 31 minutes, was where the band shined and took the opportunity to play some rock ‘n’ roll classics.  Elvis Presley’s ‘I Gotta Know’ segued into The Beatles’ ‘Twist and Shout’, followed by a three minute version of Benny Spellman’s ‘Fortune Teller’ (all three tracks were again ‘one and only’ performances, sans a 40 second snippet of Fortune Teller played in Oakland on September 2, 1970 concert).  As they had done during the first show in Tokyo, the band also played both Good Times Bad Times and You Shook Me during the medley.

The last song of the three hour show was Rock and Roll, another preview from their upcoming album and the first time they played the track on the Japan tour.

There are three separate recordings of this legendary concert:

Source 1 (175 min. aka soundboard source): Most bootlegs use this recording as the primary source.  Some of the more popular titles from source 1 include: The Complete Geisha Tape (Tarantura & Memphis), Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Mad Dogs), A Cellarful of Noise (Noise Generator), Live in Japan 1971 (Rock Solid & Last Stand Disc), and Live in Osaka (Night Hawk).

Source 2 (178 min. aud. source): 929 (H-Bomb) & 9291971 (Tarantura 2000 –first three discs).

Source 3 (93 min. aud. source): Nine Two Nine (TDOLZ)

Most of the other bootleg titles are multi-sources mixes of the show with the first source usually being the primary source; they include Fatally Wanderer (Wendy), Live in Japan 1971 (Empress Valley), and You Were There in Spirits (Empress Valley).  Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Scorpio) and Geisha – Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Tarantura) used the third recording as the primary source, but filled gaps with the second source. It’s rumored that Jimmy Page has complete multi-tracks of this show in his archive.

Japan 1971 Tour Sammary:

The best way to describe Led Zeppelin’s first trek to Japan could be a twist on the Latin phrase attributed to Julius Caesar – “Veni, Vidi, Vici” – they came, they saw, they conquered.  For many Led Zeppelin fans, the 1971 Japan Tour remains the apex of their entire concert history.  The Zeppelin machine was truly firing on all cylinders, and their ability to continually take risks and incorporate new songs into the shows each night – sometimes on the spot – demonstrated a band with complete and total confidence.  Mission accomplished!

YOU TUBE CLIP OF THE DAY:

This is the rare cine film  via Led  Zeppelin .com  from the September 23rd 1971 Budokan Tokyo concert.

THE TBL COUNTDOWN COLLECTION: NUMBER 11 WITH 18 DAYS TO GO:

Number 11 in the countdown to Celebration Day:

Today’s choice is an appropriate one being  Led Zeppelin Geisha –  Smoke Gets In Your Eyes on the Tarantura label. This is a 3 CD 40th anniversary package of the legendary September 29th 1971 Osaka show as described above. This is the definitive version drawn from the various sources to produce the near complete show. Simply one of the essential Zep live recordings.

Until tomorrow…keep on celebrating…

Dave Lewis/Gary Foy

September 29th, 2012

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