The Heart of Markness Led Zeppelin Podcast

You can imagine my delight when I saw that Led Zeppelin Boots had created an updated edition of the 1975 soundboard compilation that'd been around for a bit. Choosing tracks from the extant soundboard tapes, Boots crafted a very enjoyable listener. You can think of it as a sampler. You get a taste of each show represented. I play Sick Again from 3/21 Seattle, Levee from 1/18 Bloomington, and Kashmir from 2/28 Baton Rouge.

North Bridge has released a new remix/remaster of Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1977. This is the first night of their multi night residency in NYC. Jonesy's bass is very well represented, with a fat tone missing from many 1977 boots. I play Achilles Last Stand (Jonesy's bass dude...) and an epic, eternal No Quarter with the Nutrocker included. It's nuts. Then Bonzo and Jimmy go primal on the festivities, and we have another 1977 No Quarter in the books. Good stuff. I like the instrument separation North Bridge attains through his remixing the stems extracted from the raw recording.

This is posted one day after the 52 anniversary of this wonderful show. Led Zeppelin playing to 58,000 people outside, in broad daylight, at Kezar Stadium on June 2, 1973. This show is famous for the photo of Robert Plant holding a dove in his hand. I play a very nice 31 minuted Dazed and Confused followed by the show closer, The Ocean. It's a really nice show overshadowed by the shows directly before and after.

This is a very cool look at Jimmy Page's music mere months before the formation of Led Zeppelin. May 29, 1968 at the Concord Colosseum had The Yardbirds playing a very cool bluesy/psychedelic set to a very lucky audience. Given that Clapton, Beck, and Page all gestated within the Yardbirds, it's safe to say the Yardbirds were a guitar band. Unfortunately, they were marketed as a pop combo, so as the 60's evolved into the wilder, more improvisational psychedelic areas, the disconnect between their record company and the band became unsustainable. The band folded shortly after this gig, leaving Jimmy with the Yardbirds name. I play Mr. You're a Better Man Than I, Heartful of Soul, and a wild and improvisational I'm A Man. I find it interesting that I'm a Man is the song in which the band stretches out and jams, rather than Dazed and Confused, which was also in the setlist. This a very cool snapshot of a very cool time in music, as well as the future of Led Zeppelin.

I can't believe the Earl's Court shows are 50 years old! Jesus. For this episode I am featuring an audience compilation of the best of all five nights. I play In My Time of Dying from the May 25th, Tangerine from the 18th (great harmonies from all 4 gents), and Heartbreaker & Communication Breakdown, both from the 25th.

This is an amazing send off for Robert Plant's higher range. December 8, 1972 at the Hard Rock in Manchester, UK is a great performance of a great band reaching their peak. The recording is clear and nice, and the instruments are all well balanced and represented. I play Since I've Been Loving You, and a raucous 27 minute Whole Lotta Love, with jams and medleys aplenty. It's great. It's 1972 Led Zeppelin. You should get the whole recording.

I was delighted to come across this wonderful recording through Led Zeppelin Boots' amazing YouTube channel. April 14, 1970 had Led Zeppelin playing Ottawa, Alberta in a brilliant, exciting, explosive kaboom of awesomeness. The tape itself in fragmentary and incomplete, but what's here is gold. I play Dazed and Confused, Heartbreaker, and an incredible White Summer/Black Mountainside. This show was a delight!

Boston was always a big Led Zeppelin town, starting back at the very beginning with the marathon Tea Party gigs, through this show right here. July 20, 1973 is the last time Zeppelin played Boston. The crowd is wild at this gig, so much so that the band eliminate Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, and Moby Dick from the setlist. All to keep the crowd from going Chernobyl. No encores either. I play Celebration Day, a smokin' Stairway, and a brilliant No Quarter that presages the brilliance about to be recorded in NYC a week later.

This is nice stereo FM master recording of Aerosmith in Detroit on April 7, 1974, broadcast on WABX back in the day. The band is rapidly ascending to the top of Rock Mountain with Get Your Wings, the album they're supporting here. I play Mama Kin, Dream On, and Same Old Song & Dance. It's good ol' dirty rock and roll a la The Faces or The New Barbarians. Good stuff.

Eight days after the shambolic Live Aid reunion Jimmy Page joined Robert Plant onstage at the Brendan Byrne Arena, in East Rutherford, NJ. The contrast between the two gigs couldn't be greater. Robert's voice is virtually perfect and Jimmy's guitar (and Jimmy himself) are in tune. I play an aching beautiful Young Boy Blues from his then current Honeydrippers EP, and then I play the two encores Jimmy played with the band; the first being a standard blues number (I don't know if it has a name), and then a fiery run through of Treat Her Right, which calls back to when they jammed the same tune two years earlier. This is a great performance and a shining testimony to the viability of a Page/Plant collaboration even back then, when they sniped at each other in the press.

This show, February 27, 1996, is the third to the last for Page/Plant's No Quarter tour, and it is smokin'! The band hasn't lost a step since their legendary Japanese shows of a few days prior. This is an excellent audience recording which maintains the high bar set in Japan, quality-wise. I play a ridiculously hot In The Evening, and the two encores which took the roof off the place. Black Dog and Rock and Roll. The latter two are sung with Robert Plant going alllllll out; hitting notes one doesn't expect. The band are in a great mood and the audience is locked in all the way. A great show with top of their game performances.

This recording was liberated by the Dogs of Doom back in the day, and boy oh boy is it cool! Cream playing Dallas State Fair Music Hall just 7 months before they called it a day. The recording is rough. The bass is super loud and overloaded. The vocals are buried behind the music, but that because that's how they sounded, basically. PA systems hadn't yet been developed to keep up with cranked Marshall stacks. That would be a year later. I play a blistering Sunshine of Your Love, and and even more blistering I'm so Glad. Jack Bruce's sick bass chording during Sunshine foreshadows the evil Dio era Black Sabbath sound by more than a decade. All three of these musicians are absolute virtuosos and amazing with every measure played.

This is a very nice stereo recording (AUD patched w/ SBD) remastered by Winston, of Led Zeppelin playing New Orleans on May 15, 1973. This is a fun performance which is one of the best of their May shows. I play the final trifecta of the night; Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love (with medleys aplenty), and Communication Breakdown. All performances are great and you will enjoy them. You will enjoy them.

Led Zeppelin always seemed to bump it up a notch when touring the West Coast/PNW, and this is no exception. March 19, 1975 in Vancouver, BC is one of the better shows from this tour. I have covered this show before, but it's been almost 5 years since then, so.... fair game. I play Sick Again, Kashmir, & In My Time of Dying; all of which new songs for this tour.

On July 1, 1980 Santana played Frankfurt, Germany at the same venue in which Led Zeppelin played the night before. Jimmy Page hung around and attended the show, and even joined the band for a couple of tunes. What is noteworthy is how good the jams are. 1980 Jimmy can be very hit or miss. This is a hit. A hit out of the park. First of all Santana is an incredible band as is the recording (Master Soundboard) which was remastered by Dario Romero. They did a great job. I play a raucous and extremely tight Shake Your Moneymaker where Jimmy easily matches Carlos lick for lick. It's great. I then play Evil Ways which says it has Jimmy on it but I'm not too sure. Still a great performance from a great band.

June 17, 1980 is the first date in Led Zeppelin's Tour Over Europe, and on that date we find the band in Dortmund. They come out of the gate with something to prove, and they deliver. The show opens with an intense and dangerous Train Kept A Rollin' followed without a breath by Nobody's Fault But Mine, which now is truncated as the intro guitar is eliminated going right into the song. I like it. The Rain Song is perfection as it usually is with Bonzo bringing fury and bombast, which will diminish tragically as the tour progresses.

This show has been around forever in lower quality but this is transferred from the reel master. Heinz Esser is the taper of this awesome Free concert, and he also taped Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple (and more). He caught a great performance by Paul Rodgers and Co. for sure. Paul Kossof is a master of tone and technique at only 19 years old. Andy Fraser's thicc bass and Simon Kirke's tight drumming create a powerful engine, with Paul Rodgers at the controls. I play The Hunter (Zep fans will recognize this song) and Fire and Water which are both incredible.

The very last time the Firm played publicly was May 28, 1986 in good ol' Seattle. Everyone in the band knew it was the end of the project, and they all play their hearts out. Paul Rodgers outdoes himself with delivery and passion. Jimmy is very upbeat and talkative. This show is really good. You know how I am at best lukewarm on the Firm, overall, but the Mean Business tour sounds streets ahead of the 1985 tour. You're going to enjoy the energy, the music, and the balls of this show. I play an incendiary Spirit of Love, a furious Midnight Moonlight, and a very heavy and dark bluesy I Just Wanna Make Love to You. Even if you're not a big Firm fan this one is the exception. Enjoy.

The 1996 Page/Plant tour of Japan has been extremely well regarded, and documented, for close to 30 years. Thanks to the fantastic audio and video captured, with the ok of the band, by Third Eye, we have a magnificent full stereo recording of February 12, 1996 in Tokyo. We hear a tender Tea for One (only ever played on this tour) with orchestra, a brilliant and bombastic Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, with a nice Stairway tease, and a supremely tight and cool af Whole Lotta Love, which contains the original, the Knebworth version, and new sections exclusive to the Page/Plant partnership. It's awesome. The whole show.

I once again revisit one of the finest Zep concerts, at least of the post 1973 era. July 24, 1979 at the Falkoner Theater in Copenhagen is absolutely brilliant concert by the biggest band in the world, playing a 1200 seat venue, as a warmup to their 200,000+ Knebworth shows the next month. I play Trampled Underfoot, In The Evening (2nd time played), and a raucous Whole Lotta Love with a new arrangement for a new era. All this in anticipation of the newly discovered live film from this show, to be released with synced sound by LedZepFilm, on 2/18/25 on his youtube channel. So cool.