Seattle, Washington
Audience (Source 1)
Stan Gutoski's master reels x2 @ full-track mono @ 7.5 ips > Bill Bratton's 1st gen reels x2 @ full-track mono @ 7.5 ips > wav (24/96) > wav (16/44) > flac
Taped By: Stan Gutoski in association with JEMS
Recording Notes:
An excellent but incomplete mono recording of one the marathon shows Zeppelin played in 1975. They really let it all hang out at this show. Unfortunately Stan wasn't able to document the last 45 minutes of the show (for reasons outlined below) but what he did capture is of excellent sound quality with almost no audience noise.
Courtesy of publisher Hugh Jones, here are two excerpts from his fanzine Proximity Vol. 6, No. 17. The first piece is an article titled A Taper's Tale: The story of how the show was taped, which explains some of the details behind this recording. The second piece is a review of the March 21st show written by Hugh himself.
Excerpt 1
"Through a series of intricate negotiations, clandestine meetings and [actually] just a stroke of luck, I recently spoke with the individual who made the recording used as the source for Seattle Supersonic and Hammer Of The Gods. It should be noted that [Stan] had no intention of recording the shows for use on a bootleg--he was simply a recording hobbyist and Zep fan, taping for the enjoyment of himself and his friends.
[Stan] utilized a portable Tandberg full-track, mono reel-to-reel tape deck (not a Grundig as reported in Proximity #2). The machine was the size of a small typewriter and ran on ten "D" batteries and the Zep shows were recorded at a tape speed of 7 1/2 ips, part of the reason for the excellent sound quality (cassettes run at 1 7/8 ips and faster tape speed yields better sound).
To avoid any hassles in bringing in his equipment into the Coliseum, [Stan]--who at the time had quite short hair--dressed very "straight." He walked right up to one of the policemen stationed at the door, holding up his black shoulder bag containing the tape deck and proclaimed "I've got my equipment right here, if you want to check it!" The cop didn't even open the bag, he just escorted our man to the ticket-taker and ushered him into the building, no doubt thinking anyone looking that straight and behaving in such an up-front manner must be authorized. It was a different era, to be sure!
Unfortunately his efforts on both nights were fraught with difficulty, which is why the recordings are incomplete. On Monday (March 17), Stan was involved in an auto accident en route to the show. He was fortunately uninjured, but arrived at the Coliseum quite late and was unable to begin taping until "Song Remains The Same" had already started. On Friday (March 21), he arrived on time and got everything going fine for the first reel of tape as well as the second [a misloaded tape, flipped to the non-recording side, yielded a blank second reel and hence incomplete Seattle '72 master], but he didn't have enough tape to capture the whole show at 7 1/2 ips.
The band performed at extremely high volume, and the location of the equipment not only solved the audience noise problem, it captured the sound coming out of the PA system in a uniquely 'distilled fashion'-not a lot of room reverb, and an extremely even balance between the different elements of the music. -HJ
Excerpt 2
[Friday night], back in the Coliseum again, and this time the anticipation is less frenzied but somehow even more intense; many of us know what we're about to experience this time, and there's excited talk about the Monday show. The lights go down, [a] voice intones "Ladies & Gentlemen, the American return of. . ." Bonzo taps the snare few times to get his monitor level, and then that wall of sound hits once again. Led Zeppelin were absolutely the loudest band I have ever heard, yet at these concerts, anyway, the P.A. was crystal clear and the overall sound was perfect"
"Rock and Roll" starts faster and stronger than the previous show and Robert's voice is strong again. Page is positively on fire as he blasts into the solo, and I remember shaking my head and thinking, "is it possible? are they even better than on Monday?" As "Sick Again" ended, Robert again set the tone for the evening, greeting us like a group of friends gathered in his living room for a part:
"Well, we went across the border, it was all right, but it's much better back here. And that's no lie, that's the truth. [a reference to the two Vancouver, B.C. gigs they played during the week] What we intend to do tonight is to, ahh, to relieve our physical pent-upped-ness on stage, and then to relieve it later on after the gig elsewhere. Now the thing is, what we intend to do is to try and give you a cross-section of what we've been trying to produce and write over the last six and a half years. As you know, the material varies greatly and so you will appreciate that we take it from one extreme. . . to the other."
In those few sentences, Robert Plant may have encapsulated Led Zeppelin as well as anyone ever has. The physical, the musical, the pretention and the arrogance—all backed up with music as varied and as good as his word, for the next four hours. Throughout the concert Robert was very talkative, chatting it up with the crowd and joking with the rest of the band and road crew, at one point demanding applause for "Raymond, with a broken leg!" and "Benjie, who's caught a social disease—poor Benjie, he'll have to pop into the clinic down in L.A." and "Peter Grant, known as 'Panama Pete' to the Seattle Police."
Musically, the set followed [the March 17] show for the first portion of the concert, though everything was longer, with more inspired soloing from Jimmy and interplay from the rest of the band. "Kashmir" was again incredible, bringing the proceedings to the first of several peaks right around the time most other bands would be fininshing up the show.
"No Quarter" provided the first break in the show's momentum, and in fact Jones' extended keyboard solo began to get tedious, sending many people out for a breather on the concourses. I stayed, and was impressed by the rumbling bass notes Jones coaxed out of the keyboard, literally shaking the seats with their depth and volume. When Jimmy finally came in with his solo, it signalled a lengthy improvisation featuring the three musicians (especially Jones and Bonham, in this instance) playing off each other and trading licks.
As on the earlier "In My Time Of Dying," it was moments like these in which Zeppelin really flexed their musical muscles, demonstrating what it was that set them so far apart from everyone else. It always amazed me how they could communicate musically. Without a lot of the eye contact that you see in jazz improvisers and many other bands, the three instrumentalists could jam endlessly and differently every show, almost always staying in synch and on a good night like this one, creating something that was truly unique in rock.
Following "No Quarter," Robert called for a change in the program, causing a little confusion on stage. "There's one song that we've done twice in, in. . . I suppose since we got ripped off for all that bread in New York, ages ago. And because we really dig playing here and for no other reason we're gonna do it again now. It's a, it's ahh. .. . I don't think anybody else in the band knows about it yet, it's a little bit of change in the. . . sorry about that, John! You see, right on the spot! It could be 'Louie Louie' but instead, it's a thing from the third album. . . 'Since I've Been Loving You'."
The performance is a bit rusty but in keeping with the show, delivered with passion and a tremendous Page guitar solo. Following a brutal "Trampled Underfoot" and Bonzo's marathon "Moby Dick," more confusion appears to be occuring onstage. Robert shouts for an ovation for Bonzo, then asks in a casual tone, "Is everybody, uh, enjoying themselves?" Jimmy is talking urgently with a group of people just off stage, and at one point seems to lift his guitar in the air as if to throw it down, obviously perturbed about something. Unfazed and still in his conversational tone, Robert observes "Mr. Page is having a fit. .. ." Apparently, we found out later, a local fan made Jimmy a gift of a beautiful Les Paul guitar, which turned out to be stolen from a high school music teacher. During the evening the instrument was confiscated at Sea-Tac airport as it was being shipped back to the U.K. (or so the story goes), and for some reason Page was interrupted during the show to be informed of this.
Robert observed the activity from stage center, eventually addressing the crowd as it grew restless. "There's a little bit of a discrepancy about a guitar and a man who's being held by the police, and all sorts of things. Quite a story going on behind the scenes." Jimmy's attention returns to the stage, and Plant continues, "I think we'll dedicate this to the innocent party, whoever and where space ever he may be in this giant intrigue that goes on." The show's centerpiece, "Dazed & Confused," started with the ponderous bass line, and huge flashpots ignited at the sound of Jimmy's guitar harmonics, eliciting a gasp from the crowd.
I had seen Led Zeppelin develop this piece from its six-minute prototype in 1969 into a progressively longer and more drawn-out experimentation every tour, with 1975 obviously being the culmination—and this particular night being the longest, and arguably the best version yet [unleashed]. After only a verse they launched into improvisation, mixing familiar bits with new and spacier-than-ever explorations spearheaded by Mr. Page. His slow, flamenco-flavored soloing lasted longer than the previous show, before the band came in on the groove and Robert sang Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" over.
Midway through the bow solo a trio of laser beams suddenly appeared from behind the drumset, vividly piercing the dark arena from stage to rear ceiling, an absolutely amazing sight. Remember, no one had seen lasers in a rock concert at that point. I believe Led Zeppelin were among the first—if not the first—to use this technology, and the effect was quite profound on an already awestruck crowd.
The set-closing "Stairway" was dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, and following another ten-minute break as the crowd screamed and cheered with undiminishing intensity, the band returned and blasted through their new-model "Whole Lotta Love" medley incorporating "The Crunge" (and this night, some James Brown lines) and eventually seqgueing into "Black Dog." Again, rapturous response, fond goodbyes bid by Robert, and the band leaves the stage.
After Monday night we all expected the show to be over, but people wouldn't stop cheering and certainly weren't leaving the arena in any great numbers. Ten more minutes, and the lights went down again! A spirited "Communication Breakdown," followed immediately by a powerful "Heartbreaker"—-apparently, after close to four hours of playing did nothing to diminish the band's tremendous energy, and Page played brilliantly on his solo break.
When it ended, Robert shouted "Seattle, thanks, you've been great!" and Bonzo leaped down from behind his drums for a group bow. With much smiling, hand-waving, back-patting, throwing of kisses, the four musicians left the stage, leaving 17,000 satisfied people totally drained and exhausted, staggering out into the March night knowing that they'd witnessed something that was one of a kind, and one in a million.
Transfer Notes:
After a series of back and forth conversations with Bill Bratton regarding this show we decided it was time to do a proper hi-res transfer from the best possible source that could be located. Bill provided me with his 1st gen reels he dubbed in the late 70's using Stan's masters and the Tandberg reel-to-reel deck. Bill dubbed these reels using the master tapes from a second stereo Tandberg deck, back to Stan's original mono source deck. Bill also reached out to his friends in JEMS, of which Stan is a member, for access to the masters to also work with to determine which source was better. Members of JEMS graciously provided their first gen reels (Stan's masters have been missing or no longer exist for over 15 years now)-so either of these sets can be considered the closest verifiable analog copies to the masters done for the sole purpose as backups.