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Led Zeppelin - A Little Bit Warm (1973)

Track listing:
  1. Rock and Roll 5:15
  2. Over the Hills and Far Away 5:48
  3. Black Dog 6:03
  4. Misty Mountain Hop 5:00
  5. Since I've Been Loving You 9:20
  6. Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp 5:58
  7. The Song Remains the Same 5:35
  8. The Rain Song 8:26
  9. Dazed And Confused 29:21
  10. Stairway To Heaven 11:14
  11. Whole Lotta Love (medley) 27:34
  12. Heartbreaker 7:31

Notes


Led Zeppelin
Orthenauhalle
Offenburg, Germany
March 24th 1973
2 Source AUD

Title: A Little Bit Warm

Eddie's Notes:

This is a combination of two audience recordings:

Source 1, Unknown gen -> DAT -> CD-R
Source 2, 3rd gen -> DAT -> CD-R

Source 1 has better sound and was used where possible. Source 2 was used
for a part of Dazed and in various places between songs.

Source 1 is the better known recording, the one described by Luis Rey as
"three-dimensional". The sound is nice but the recording suffers from
instability in one channel, resulting in a panning effect that is quite
off-putting in places. The version I have used is of unknown generation.
I have come across numerous copies of this source that claim to be 2nd,
3rd gen etc., but they have sounded inferior.

There is, for example, a version available in trading circles as "2nd
gen -> DAT -> CDR" on which the channel problems have been eliminated
by, for the most part, throwing away the unstable channel and producing
a mono version consisting of the stable channel only. Not only does this
lose the impressive stereo of the recording, but it also has a
detrimental effect on the overall sound quality as, for some reason, the
channel with the dropouts has a warmer sound with more bottom end. I was
looking forward to hearing the recent Live Remains "Cold Sweat" release
as I had read some good reviews but, on listening to it, I was
disappointed to find that it appeared to have been made from this "mono"
version. It seems to be a commonly held opinion that this release is an
improvement over previous releases such as Cobla's "Custard Pie", but I
can't agree. Not for the first time, I have to conclude that people are
far too quick to proclaim any new release as an upgrade without actually
bothering to compare it to earlier versions.

I did consider using more of source 2 for the parts of the show that are
worst affected by the channel dropouts, such as Rain Song and Dazed, but
the sound is clearly inferior on source 2. It was a difficult decision,
and one that had put me off tackling this show on a number of previous
occasions, but my preference in the end was to use all available
material from source 1. The channel dropouts are an annoyance but, in my
opinion, it was much better to live with them than to get rid of them
but also lose so much that is good about this recording. Those who find
the channel dropouts unacceptable are welcome to disagree and to prefer
other versions of the show, such as Cold Sweat.


CD 1
1. Rock and Roll
2. Over the Hills and Far Away
3. Black Dog
4. Misty Mountain Hop
5. Since I've Been Loving You
6. Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp
7. The Song Remains the Same
8. The Rain Song

CD 2
1. Dazed And Confused
2. Stairway To Heaven
3. Whole Lotta Love (medley)
4. Heartbreaker

*Artwork is included

Orthenauhalle
Offenburg, Germany

This is a combination of two audience recordings:

Source 1, Unknown gen -> DAT -> CD-R
Source 2, 3rd gen -> DAT -> CD-R

Source 1 has better sound and was used where possible. Source 2 was used
for a part of Dazed and in various places between songs.