Berkeley Community Center, Berkeley, CA
Ship of Fools/Four Sticks/Down To The Sea/Morning Dew/Going To California/Hey Hey What Can I Do/In The Mood/Celebration Day/House Is Not A Motel/Calling To You/Tall Cool One/Baby I’m Going To Leave You
Encore: Song To The Siren/Whole Lotta Love
Set-List Mike Rodriguez
This from Rainer Soelkner
– Opener “Ship of fools” somewhat strange (I really love the song but it should have been scheduled to a later part of the show, my opinion, furthermore, I think the 93 live version of the song has more feeling, can be confirmed by listening to one of Robert’s CD singles at that time on which this was featured as a bonus track).
– Great introductions of GTC as “this is folks music – regional folks music!” and Tall Cool One as “this as a tribute to Elvis”. Both tunes went off really well.
– Disappointed that only “Morning Dew” and “Song to Siren” as new album tracks were being played, we (my girlfriend attending with me) would have loved “Darkness Darkness” at least. (She was happy that there was no “Hey Joe” as she very much dislikes it …)
– Great surprises to hear HEY HEY WHAT CAN I DO and IN THE MOOD (not featured on any of US-East Coast shows, if I recall reviews correctly)
– Crowd was somewhat inert, only at the end during WLL, the first rows were really enjoying/partying/rocking …
– Length approx. 90 minutes –
And this from Mike Rodriguez
This is the first time I’ve been to the Berkeley High School Community Theater despite it being just 70 miles from my home. For a high school theater this place is incredible! The theater holds about 3000 people and
has a large main floor and a mezzanine. Not your average high school theater by any means! Since it’s located on a high school campus there was no alcohol sold much to the surprise of some concert goers! Opening act was a band called MOE which I’ve never heard of before but they were very well received by the crowd. They played about 45 minutes.
Robert took the stage at 9:15 and the crowd rose to their feet (and stayed standing for the entire performance!) as he opened up with a fairly slow version of ‘Ship of Fools’ (I was expecting ‘Funny In My Mind’ after reading previous posts). Next was as hard rocking version of ‘Four Sticks’ which sounded really good with electric guitars rather than the acoustic version Page and Plant had been playing the last few tours. Robert looks pretty good but seems to have aged in the last four years (haven’t we all). He was
wearing light colored pants and what appeared to be a bowling shirt! Not to many ‘plantations’ tonight. Robert did mention how he hadn’t performed in this theater since September of 1971. It must have been incredible to see Zeppelin in such a small venue!
‘Down To The Sea’ and ‘Morning Dew’ followed. After that came three more Zeppelin numbers: ‘Going to California’, ‘Hey Hey What Can I Do’ and ‘Celebration Day’ (which sounded very similar to the studio version). All three songs we performed extremely well and the audience showed their appreciation by signing along and with much applause. ‘House Is Not A Motel’ was next and I had never heard that song before. It turned out to be my favorite of the night, too bad it’s not on Dreamland. ‘Calling to You’ was next followed by ‘Tall Cool One’ which was introduced by Robert as a song from Elvis Presley(?). He then started to ramble on about the Riviera Hotel and a box of chocolates, so I’m pretty sure he’s referring to the time he got to meet Elvis. An excellent version of ‘Baby I’m Going To Leave You” closed out the set. For the encore Robert came out drinking a bottle of Jamaican Red Stripe beer and mentioned to the crowd that the next song would be slow but the song after that would “ROCK”. He was right “Song to the Siren was pretty mellow but Robert’s vocals were outstanding. Last song of the night was “Whole Lotta Love”, this was a slightly different version than what we’re all used to (guitar solo’s at the end were omitted) but the
bongo drum during the mid-section of the song was a pleasant surprise. All in all this was an excellent show!! Too bad it was only about an hour and a half long!
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