Led Zeppelin
March 24th, 1975
The Forum
Los Angeles, CA
Deep Throat I (EVSD 156-158) part of:
Deep Throat (Empress Valley EVSD-156 ~ 164 / EVSDVD-001)
Fresh rip from my silvers, full scans of artwork @ 300dpi included
101. Introduction by J.J. Jackson
102. Rock And Roll, Sick Again
103. Over The Hills And Far Away
104. In My Time Of Dying
105. The Song Remains The Same
106. The Rain Song
107. Kashmir
201. No Quarter
202. Trampled Underfoot
203. Moby Dick
301. Dazed And Confused
302. Stairway To Heaven
303. Whole Lotta Love
304. Black Dog
305. Heartbreaker
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Led Zeppelin
March 25th, 1975
The Forum
Los Angeles, CA
Deep Throat II (EVSD 159-161) part of:
Deep Throat (Empress Valley EVSD-156 ~ 164 / EVSDVD-001)
Fresh rip from my silvers, full scans of artwork @ 300dpi included
101. Introduction
102. Rock And Roll
103. Sick Again
104. Over The Hills And Far Away
105. In My Time Of Dying
106. The Song Remains The Same
107. The Rain Song, Kashmir
201. No Quarter
202. Trampled Underfoot
203. Moby Dick
301. Dazed And Confused
302. Stairway To Heaven
303. Whole Lotta Love
304. Black Dog
****************
Led Zeppelin
March 27th, 1975
The Forum
Los Angeles, CA
Deep Throat III (EVSD 162-164) part of:
Deep Throat (Empress Valley EVSD-156 ~ 164 / EVSDVD-001)
Fresh rip from my silvers, full scans of artwork @ 300dpi included
101. Introduction
102. Rock And Roll
103. Sick Again
104. Over The Hills And Far Away
105. In My Time Of Dying
106. The Song Remains The Same
107. The Rain Song
108. Kashmir
109. Since I’ve Been Loving You
201. No Quarter
202. Trampled Underfoot
203. Moby Dick
301. Dazed And Confused
302. Stairway To Heaven
303. Whole Lotta Love
304. Black Dog
It was 1975 when Zeppelin arguably attained the greatest height of popularity. Physical Graffiti had been out for a month by the time they completed their US tour with three sold out shows at the Forum in Los Angeles. The new album reached number one on the chart, but also their entire catalogue up to that point also entered the charts again (Led Zeppelin IV at #83; Houses of the Holy at #92; Led Zeppelin II at #104; Led Zeppelin at #116; and Led Zeppelin III at #124), a feat never before accomplished in pop history.
It was also this time where they gained a certain amount of respect from the music press, something which they craved and didn’t always receive with long, glowing articles in Rolling Stone and New Musical Express.
By the time Zeppelin entered the final week of the tour, their health problems were less of a problem and they played some of their longest, darkest, strangest and most wired concerts of their entire career. The marathons in the set, “No Quarter,” “Moby Dick” and “Dazed And Confused” all routinely reached a half hour. Thankfully all of these shows have been recorded and are commonly available including Michael Millard, one of the most accomplished tapers in the seventies, capturing all of the LA area concerts.
Deep Throat on Empress Valley is the second attempt to present a boxset of all three shows together. Tarantura made the first set called Get Back To L.A. in the mid-nineties. It is packaged in a gorgeous accordion still package and at the time was definitive. But since better generations of these tapes have surfaced.
Deep Throat was originally announced in 1999 but delayed until 2000 and was available finally in 2003. The first edition came in a box silver box with a tour program and sold out quickly and commanding high prices when it does surface. This edition is a reprint released for Christmas 2008.
Unlike the first edition, the second edition is packaged more simply in three gatefold sleeves which are stored in a slip cover. Given Empress Valley’s careful mastering of the Millard tapes and their editing of alternate tape sources to fix the gaps, this remains one of their best creations and are certainly the definitive editions of the LA concerts. The tapes have never sounded as good.
Led Zeppelin’s final show of their 1975 tour at the LA Forum is one of the longest, heaviest and self-indulgent on record. This show is good for those who like their Zeppelin dark and mysterious with long and crazy improvisations going on for hours. Surprisingly this show was never released on vinyl but saw new life with the advent of compact discs.
Perhaps the earliest can be found on Psychical Graffiti (Flying Disc CD6-817), which claims this to be a soundboard recording. This was supposed to be part of a three disc set but the label only produced one. The Italy produced Dazed And Confused (The Mad Dogs Records MDR-LZ001-2) and its Australian copy Crazed And Bemused (Black Cat BC-22) has “Rock And Roll,” “Sick Again,” and “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” The earliest three disc set with the whole show appear on Electric Orgasm (Jolly Roger D91-51-52-53) and in the boxset Get Back To LA (Tarantura T9CD-1-7).
In the late nineties Final Show In the Forum 1975 (Jelly Roll JR 12/13/14) (which many Zeppelin collectors admit is the best version to exist), Tour De Force (Rabbit Records RR 005/6/7) and Remainz (Akashic AKA-4) all were released to various degrees of success. The latest two editions can be found in Last Night In the Forum 1975 (Power Archives PA 0307001/2/3), coming out in late 2003 and is actually the only title to use the second tape source to fill in the gaps on the first, and We’re Playing Our Balls Out(The Chronicles Of Led Zeppelin TCOLZ 021/022/023/024/025/026) which presents both tape srouces in total spread out over six discs.
For the final night on their tenth US tour, Led Zeppelin play one of their longest ever gigs clocking in at almost three and a half hours. They also stretch themselves musically and, although they don’t always succeed, the results are interesting nevertheless. Disc jockey JJ Jackson introduces porn star Linda Lovelace to introduce the band and after the opening duo of “Rock And Roll” and “Sick Again” Plant says, “This is the last gig on the American tour for us. So it only remains to be said that we intend to have yet even a better time than we’ve had here before. We’d like to thank Linda Lovelace for coming on and making an appropriate speech about our presence and we’d like to apologize for being late, but one of the cars didn’t crash. It didn’t crash.”
After “Kashmir” they celebrate the final night by changing the setlist by playing “Since I’ve Been Loving You” for only the third time on the tour. Still a bit rugged, Page misses the transition from the solo to the final verse. Self consciously Plant says afterwards, “Right, well that was something that we’ve done about three times in three years. It’s always quite refreshing to do things that we haven’t done for such a long time even though sometime you might think it puts your reputation at stake in front of twenty thousand people, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“No Quarter” reaches a half hour in this performance. Jones plays an interesting three note arpeggio on the grand piano and runs it through different variations as a reoccurring motif before Page comes in with the guitar section of the solo. This is certainly one of the more interesting improvisations among the 1975 versions of the piece. “Trampled Underfoot” follows and Page himself, in a magazine interview several years ago, singled this performance out as perhaps the best ever. He plays a unique solo in the middle and by the end Plant is singing “Gallows Pole” as the song moves along. In fact he refers to the song afterwards as “Trampled Under Gallows.” Plant continues talking about a part they attended in honor of The Pretty Things and how Bonham left early and threw a television out of the window, one of his activities that has passed into legend.
“Dazed And Confused” is introduced as “a deliberation for the fact that we should be now, in about three months time, I don’t know, on our way to Kathmandu. So stand by for the songs when we come back from there. Reaching forty-five minutes even with the cut, this is one of the longest versions extant on tape. Early on, where Plant would normally sing either “San Francisco” or “Woodstock,” he mumbled lyrics to an unidentifiable song with the phrase “loving you” repeated over and over again. Before the return to the third verse Page hits upon a chunky riff over a funk rhythm laid down by Jones and Bonham that sounds terrifically exciting and in unfortunately cut on both recordings. Its transition to the finale is missing.
When they return to the stage for the encores Plant says, “We’d like to thank California for being such good hosts to us while we’ve been here, and if anybody can hear us in England, we’re coming back baby!” (Referring to the shows scheduled in Earls Court in London in two months). The encores are comprised of only the “Whole Lotta Love” with segue into “Black Dog,” but the middle section is great with Plant singing “Licking Stick” and saying “licking” over again.
He keeps asking “has anybody seen the bridge?” and the audience keep responding “NO!!!” During the theremin section Bonham lets Jones and Page battle it out several times by remaining silent, only to pick up the pace and lead them into “Black Dog.” “It’s time to ramble on. Good night” are Plant’s parting words.
The DVD presents all of the audience shot footage from the shows. The best of the lot comes from the first night which is very close to the stage and clear and captures very effective shots of the band performing. Overall Deep Throat is the definitive package for the final three US shows in 1975 in great sound quality and very good editing of the sources together. If there is enough interest I can also post that one over here.