30 Years ago this evening...

30 years ago tonight, Led Zeppelin performed a concert at Richfield Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. while the performance was ok, the recording of the show was better than ok. (Personally, the following night (4/28) is one of the finest 1977 shows they did, but the recording isn't as good)

as any Zep bootleg collector can tell you, the recording from this night is pretty common. and while there are better performances from the 1977 tour (as i mentioned above), this one holds a special place in my heart. until 1992, i wasn't aware of Zeppelin bootlegs. it never occured to me that people recorded bands other than taper friendly bands (eg: Grateful Dead, Phish), so when JW (my roommate) borrowed Destroyer from WP, i was surprised. JW was trying to get me to listen to The Dead and he would make copies of shows that WP had, but on a trip to NYC, WP came back with Destroyer (2cd version, didn't have Over The Top/Moby Dick).

for me, live Zeppelin to this point was only The Song Remains The Same. i liked it a lot, but wasn't educated in the ways of bootlegs to realize that it wasn't a very good live document of Led Zeppelin. Destroyer was a better document. a near complete version of the show and i was facinated. but it wasn't until i listened to White Summer that my mind was completely blown away. i was familiar with White Summer (Jimmy included the version from the BBC session (6/27/69) on the box set). what i didn't know was in concert, White Summer crashing into Kashmir was going to change my view on Led Zeppelin forever. i remember sitting in the money chair (you could always find change that had fallen out of pockets in it) with my 2 big speakers on either side of me. volume up, but not too loud. late afternoon/early evening. grey and rainy day (similar to what it's like now). the closing strains of White Summer playing and out of nowhere, the entire band goes crashing into the opening chords of Kashmir. that transition of calmness into the power and majesty that is Kashmir sent the chills running up and down my spine for the next few minutes. i was completely dumbstruck by what had just happened. i listened to it again, and again chills. i must have listened to that sequence a few times before i was able to pull myself together enough to try and figure out what i had just listened to.

i quickly dug out some tapes so i could record the show, and eventually i had to return Destroyer to WP, but from that point on, i knew i needed more. my 2nd Zep bootlegs were from 2 separate (incomplete) shows in 1973 (soundboards that had been stolen from Jimmy in the late 80's) and from there i was as good as screwed. i began to discover that there was much more available (all for a price of course) and other shows quickly followed (Brussels 6/20/80, New York 2/12/75, Copenhagen 5/3/71) and by the time i graduated from college, i had a pretty decent sized collection of Zeppelin bootlegs. i quickly discovered that bootlegs of other bands i liked were available (most notably Pink Floyd), and ever since then, i've been collecting shows. i very rarely buy bootlegs these days, on occasion i might, but for the most part, it's all digital. it's become somewhat of an obsession, and i realize that i can't listen to all of them, but it doesn't seem to stop me.

and it all started with a recording of a show that Led Zeppelin did 30 years ago tonight.