Monday, February 25, 2008

Day 56: 7/19/1970 Berlin, Germany

7/19/1970 Berlin, Germany  (?)
Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Dazed and Confused, Bring it on Home, Since I've Been Loving You, Thank You, That's the Way, What is and What Should Never Be, Moby Dick, Whole Lotta Love, Communication Breakdown

The tape begins during the guitar solo in Immigrant Song. Plant improvises some amusing lyrics during the bow solo in Dazed and Confused to discourage those in the crowd who want to cause trouble. Page plays a Machine Gun-esque interlude during the guitar solo section. The tape is cut between songs. Bring it on Home features a cool descending riff from Page during Plant's harmonica solo.

Since I've Been Loving You is very similar to the version on Led Zeppelin III. Jones's organ solo and the first few bars of Thank You are missing from the tape. That's the Way now has its proper title, but the end of the song is missing. How Many More Times has been dropped from the set with Whole Lotta Love replacing it as the venue for the medley. Plant leads the band through another marathon of classics including Elmore James's Shake Your Moneymaker, Jimmy Reed's Down in Virginia, as well as the Muddy Waters favorites Hoochie Coochie Man, Honey Bee, and Long Distance Call. His knowledge of old blues songs is absolutely encyclopedic. The tape ends with a brief fragment of Communication Breakdown.

The tape is a bit noisy and distorted with the bass frequencies causing it to sound muffled at times.

Roughly a minute and a half of 8mm color footage filmed by journalist Chris Welch is available on Hercules's Film Noir Vol. 1. It's extremely fragmentary, but fun to watch nonetheless. Page is wearing what appears to be a full length red wizard's cape.

Click here for a video sample courtesy of Black Beauty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1970-07-19 Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, Germany "Intimate - Almost Mysterious" (Equinox)
Recording starts with Immigrant Song already rolling, near the end of the song, and then goes straight into Heartbreaker. Dazed and Confused follows, then Bring It On Home and Since I've Been Loving You. Thank You is next. Some tape speed issues during the guitar solo in the middle. That's The Way follows, but is cut short in the recording. What Is and What Should Never Be is next, which is complete, but then another tape cut misses the beginning of Moby Dick. Whole Lotta Love looks to be replacing How Many More Times as the long medley song, at least for this stretch of shows. A brief chunk of Communication Breakdown is next before the tape runs out.

Listened to this while working, so it was mostly in the background. Tape was decent, not overly noisy, but limited in dynamic range.