Municipal Auditorium
New Orleans
Limited Edition 6CD Set.
from silvers
Disc 1-3 Soundboard w/ audience patches.
Disc 4-6 Audience
Review 1:
If the previous show was nirvana, this one is beyond that. An excellent show with rowdy audience that caused the reaction from the side of the authorities. "We've got to get these house lights down. It's pretty pointless us bringing our own lights, if we've got these things going on. Mr Cole, can you take your dress off and get these lights turned down please?" asked Plant in rather humorously mood. His voice is cracking and breaking all over the place, but the band is playing exceptionally well, and from Dazed And Confused on, this show reaches its peak. Dazed has a unique, very dark and thrilling bow solo and Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love and the encore are gutsy and raw and Robert has recovered. John Bonham was introduced as the Drag Queen of New Orleans.
-Argenteum Astrum
Review 2:
This title from EV is a 6CD set, the first three of which largely feature the now familiar soundboard recording, and the remaining three of which entirely feature the newly surfaced audience recording. There is nothing wrong with this title itself. The soundboard as featured in the title is actually an upgrade over that featured in the past titles, since it especially has nice fatter bottom ends. On the other hand, the audience recording is truly a wonderful newly find! It is very dynamic and atmospheric and is thus generally more enjoyable than the soundboard which, as upgraded, is still somewhat thin and dry. The audience tape should, and I’m sure will, be an essential item for any serious collector. On the front of the package of the title, a rare color picture of all the four members of the band standing in casual styles on the Bourbon Street is printed, which adds some value for our collection (, although it looks like a shot in ’77 rather than in ’73). On the inner sides of the package, there printed are two black & white pictures of Jimmy on stage, both of which look standard in terms of his postures and attires on the '73 U.S. tour but may be rare.
However, when I compare this EV title with Winston Remasters' recent matrix title called “New Orleans May 14th 1973”, it has become difficult to assess its real value. On Disc 1, EV filled the beginning of the show (up to the start of Jimmy's guitar solo in "Rock And Roll") with the audience tape, just like WR did, because it is missing in the soundboard. The quality of the soundboard is not very different as between the two titles. Actually, WR title has less hiss noises than EV's. As the color pictures of what seem to be the master cassette tapes are shown on the back cover of the EV title, I suppose that it is true that EV used the master tapes in producing its audience tape version. However, the quality of the audience tape is again not very different as between the two titles. Rather, EV's version has more noticeable hiss noises than WR's, especially because EV amplified the audio. (In addition, WR seems to have made some noise reduction efforts artificially, without muffling the sound very much.) Unlike WR, however, EV did not dare to fill the apparent gap which exists in the audience tape close to the end of "The Rain Song" (probably due to the tape change). Overall, therefore, some people, like myself, may feel more comfortable and enjoyable when they listen to cleaner WR's title rather than EV's. However, it would not be bad to have the pressed CD versions of the upgraded soundboard and the newly surfaced wonderful audience recording, with this title from EV marketed with the nice package.
-Takemi Hiramatsu (Underground Uprising Sept. 06)