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BOTM#10 part 2

"We ended up in alot of strange places in the world, with alot of
strange people, some good strange some weird strange and to cut a long
story short in the end we found...Look there's a guy selling T-chirts up
there....ah that the Song Remains the Same...."

This one is attacked with a fury by Bonzo and Page. JPJ ain't slouching
either might I add! Like in other versions I've recently reviewed,
Plant's voice has this light flange, chorus type effect on it. But ever
so slight it seems. And it always Grows Mama!! Push Push yeah Do it! Do
it! and Page launches into high first solo, highly reminiscent of a
Celebration  Day in Amsterdam I once heard ! Bonzo's cymbals do need a
bit of toning down, maybe the subsequent releases of this addressed
that.  Man there is some great fret work on those 12 strings by Page
tonite. No cover ups whatsoever! And ever so gently it slides into Rain
Song. From bombastic to iconoclastic. Beautiful.  Some nice singing oohs
from Plant as well. Jonesy's keys sound good too. Amazing how good it
sounds with '70's technology. Sounds like Bonzo actually is tapping on
bongos at times. Strange I never really noticed Bonzo during the quiet
part of this number before. You certainly notice Bonzo when winter comes
though! The effect on Plants voice is kicked up a notch and
unfortunately I don't care for it personally. " Just a little
rain...sometimes I feel it falling..." sigh..... I like Bonzo's tympnies
"gliding up" towards the end. Very nicely executed.

 Some noodling on keys by Jonesy, sounds Clavi-ish... and a quiet
pause..." Sorry about that intermission "  Plant introduces Kashmir to
little reaction from the virgin audience.... and off we go to travel
time and space. Jimmy's guitar is buried in the mix for most of the time
save for hearing him do that low d note and occasional string bend.
Unlike 77 version when they would literally get lost, this one is album
perfect. There seems to be some odd mellotron workings at around the
3:50 mark. And oddly enough the sound in general deteriorates begining
at about the 7 minute mark. I wonder if it was just an effects overload
on the board? Hard to tell the audience reaction as disc one cuts off
quickly after the end of the number.

 " This next  track features the impecably clean fingernals of John
Paul Jones, the man who made Monty Python's Flying Circus a flop in New
York....this is a track that once agains refers to a journey we don't
seem to barely get off of, perhaps that why we're still doing what we're
doing...this is a track called No Quarter"
Jones's keys sound great. If it wasn't for the occasional crowd noises you'd almost think this was a studio cut. Jimmy's guitar seems to have an extra menancing tone to it. This is one time that chorus sounding effect on Plant's voice sounds cool. Unfortunately it can't cover for the breaks when he goes for it in the chorus. Still in general just sounds great for live Zep. Jones' solo piece starts of pretty uninspired and kinda keeps a dark vibe going before Bonzo joins in and gives it a heartbeat. 8 minutes into the number Page joins back in with the familiar solo intro and then he too kinda keeps it pretty mellow. It's really Bonzo I seem to find myself concentrating on as he keeps on building on his rhythm. There are really cool moments as his rolls mimmick what Jimmy just did on guitar. Slowly but surely the dark intensity does keep building reaching a crescendo at 13:30 then cascading down, purposefully falling into pieces and reassembling itself as Jones returns to the main NQ theme. Brilliant. After the second chorus the song again builds to a great end. The crowd loves it!!
" John Paul Jones piano...Jimmy Page electric guitar... Raymond Thomas, Jimmy Page's road manager.... Ian Night( sp?) in charge of the smoke machine that didn't work....Peter Grant our manager...EVERYBODY!!"
" Well I told you we intended to have a good time. One thing I can't stand is those very starchy pop stars who pretend that it's all so serious that it's..'tsk'....there's a few of them living in the Village from England....Here's a track from Physical Graffiti that lifts a little bit. It refers to the imbellishments of the motor car. And it has connotations to physical contact...It's called Trampled Underfoot"
Put on your seat belts!!! Crank it up, this one rocks!!! From JPJ's Clavinet , to Bonzo's mighty beat and the crunching sound of Jimmy's riff...if there's ever a get up and move your pelvis song this is it. You gotta check out the extra ditty Jimmy manages to add in right at 01:33. Bonzo's at his finest. And I just always love what Jimmy's doing in the background behind JPJ's solo...I actually like that better than Jimmy's solo itself. Not that I'm discounting Jimmy's solo. ; ) This is one number where all of them play an equal part to make it great. I mean, listen to Bonzo duplicating Jimmy's trills with his fills?!?!?! And the way Robert belts out the Talk about LLove makes me wanna go home and sweat. This is THE song to get a speeding ticket to!!!
" Well that was another new one ...." Oh wait, I hear Jimmy going down a step...can only mean one thing... "All right Ladies and Gentlemen at this point of the evening we wanna feature one of the finest percussionists that Led Zeppelin's ever had...The Bowler Hatted wonder...The man who made constipation passe.....John Bonham Moby Dick!"
I wonder what happened to Jimmy as let me tell you, that has to be the "loosest" MD intro from Page !!! tight for the solo tidbits, loose as a mad goose the rest. But somehow, it just works. Hard to really embellish to mush on a drum solo for me...I will say though, that it's pretty damn impressve the pace keeps up for the first seven minutes of this. My foot would've fallen off by now just from keeping that cymbal/tambourine going the whole time. There's a cut and when it return Johns already doing the bare hand leather tanning. Strange things going on as the drum mics are either feeding back or picking up the crowd whistles and the phasor flanging effect creates this ringing modulation. at 12:30 he takes to the tympanies. This is one for headphones!!! Maybe that's a reason I'm not too keen on some of the longer MD's in latter years is because they're in mono and don't capture the mind bending effect this panning would've had on the audience and , well, me. One final Sopwith Camel fly by and gong bong and back with the sticks for another round of amazing rolls to cap off I must say is another MD I will not fast forward through. Can anyone figure out what that last SSssssssssSSSHHHHHHh at the end is ? Was that Bonzo just blowing into his mic? And so ends disc 2.