My Thought's on the BBC

[Grant Burgess <grantburgess@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've observed several of the posts on the BBC and up here in Canada, the
release of the BBC was almost unnoticed. It seems like the new albums by
Shania Twain and Celine Dion are taking up all of the promo display space in
the stores. I couldn't see a promo poster here if my life depended on it.
The price on it was $30-36 (Canadian or about $21-$28 in US funds). There's
no promo items such as the interview disks or the enhanced CD as well.
Rather than BITCH about the situation, I ordered my copy from the US at a
cheaper price to get the interview CD. The problem now is there's a mail
strike in Canada.

I've borrowed a copy to listen to in the mean time and I'm happy to see it
out. I take the attitude that you can either say your cup is half empty or
half full. I prefer to look at things from the optimistic side where the cup
is half full. I've seen a lot of relentless whining over this package. The
BBC sessions does not have to be seen as the only live release of Led
Zeppelin in concert, as this release could be the start of things to happen.
Remember, Robert and Jimmy are busy in the studio and we hope to see a tour
next year. They do not have time to "explore the vaults" for that perfect
live compilation and here were some decent recordings that give an overview
of the band's early live performances.

There's a lot to be considered about this release.Most of us diehard fans
have this stuff, but about 99% of all the Zep fans have probably never heard
this or don't know what a good bootleg is! Several of us on this list lost
their "bootleg virginity" by signing up on a tape tree. There are flaws to
this package and part of it is due to time constraints on the CD's as only
about 150 minutes out of a possible 215 minutes could be used to make these
sessions fit on a 2 CD set. It's true that releasing these in volumes could
have kept everything complete.

One thing, I've observed about the BBC and other concert releases from the
King Biscuit Flower Hour is that most of the artists that have these shows
released in an uncut concert form have one thing in common. They all are
artists who have seen their better days whether it be Triumph, Deep Purple,
Emerson Lake and Palmer. When Jimmy Page starts spending most of his spare
time going through the vaults instead of writing more music, that will be a
sad day for us. The BBC was an easy deal as the BBC wanted to start selling
their product on their own and that's why they came to Led Zeppelin.

For $20, the BBC is a great distraction to take our minds of the much
awaited Page/Plant album and tour of 1998. I know we are all going nuts over
this. I've already had visions of some of J.R.'s countdowns for the tour to
kick off next year and some of Bill McCue's deathlist posts over people who
sneeze over the tapes.

I guess the burning issue is "are you happy with the fact that some of the
BBC stuff came out? or would you prefer that nothing came out?"

Grant
- ----------------

"Even though I got a woman In Wisconsin,	
 
I Can't help falling in love with you"		
						
Robert Plant Milan 1993

"I can hear the man upstairs and 
he's crying out:
Fall on your knees, the end 							
is near"

Amanda Marshall				
"Last Exit to Eden"