Led Zeppelin - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Sunday in Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 4-1-1971

Here's my final album out of the five albums I've made of Led Zeppelin playing for the BBC.

This one is a full concert that lasts an hour and a half. By around 1970, the BBC did a lot less of having bands play a few songs in their studios each time, and did a lot more of simply recording bands playing live for half an hour, an hour, or even longer. So this fits in with that trend. The good news is, the sound quality is excellent when there really aren't that many Led Zeppelin concerts with pristine soundboard quality. Unfortunately, it was the last time the band recorded anything for the BBC.

In November 1971, the band released "Led Zeppelin IV," surely one of the greatest albums of all time by anybody. This concert was held in April, but it contains three songs from that album, "Black Dog," Stairway to Heaven," and "Going to California." "Stairway to Heaven" had only been played live twice before this, in two shows the month before in Ireland. Since this was broadcast by the BBC a few days later, this was the de facto public unveiling of that song. It's weird to think there was a time when that was just considered another new song, with an uncertain future.

Anyway, in addition to "Led Zeppelin IV" songs, and songs from "Led Zeppelin III" (sadly, just three of them) and earlier, this show also features some rare cover versions. There's a couple I missed for my stray tracks collections, because these are all buried as snippets within a long version of "Whole Lotta Love." I've broken them up into separate tracks, since they're often played that way. "A Mess of Blues," a song made famous by Elvis Presley, is particularly interesting in that it's essentially played whole, with a clear start and finish.

This concert was officially released as part of the "Complete BBC Sessions" album, but there was a couple of problems with that. One was that the show was broken up, with some songs on the second disc, and then a few more added to the third disc, which contained all the songs they'd left out on the original two disc version. This presents all the songs in their correct order.

Furthermore, the 20-minute long "Whole Lotta Love" medley was shortened by seven minutes, removing some of the snippets of cover songs. (Maybe that was done for copyright reasons, I don't know.) I found the longer version, and patched in the missing minutes. The sound quality is basically the same, so I don't think you'll notice the difference.

Another problem I'm only guessing exists is that virtually all of the between-song banter has been cut. I'm assuming this is the case because it would have been extremely rare for Robert Plant to never speak between songs, since he would usually at least say something. The only significant dialogue is the first track, and I took that from a bootleg. The official version just has a few seconds of DJ John Peel's comments as a lead in to the first song. I'm guessing the BBC were pushing their usual limits in having an hour-and-a-half long show aired, and they edited out all the banter to keep it as short as they could. If anyone knows of any bootlegs that include more of the talking, let me know and I'll add that in.

In terms of Led Zeppelin live, this is about as good as it gets, in my opinion. I prefer this, and their other material from 1971 and earlier, than their official live album "The Song Remains the Same,"  or even "How the West Was Won." I feel Plant's voice was a tad stronger, and the band didn't get quite as carried away with long song lengths. However, there's another concert from later in 1971 that's arguably even better, and twice as long, that I'll be posting later.

This album is an hour and 42 minutes long.

UPDATE: On June 28, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I found a version mixed by Prof. Stoned that is about eight minutes longer than the official release. It seems the official version made some edits here and there, though the number of songs is the same. In particular, this version includes a lot more of the talking between songs, including an introduction by BBC DJ John Peel.

01 talk (Led Zeppelin)
02 Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin)
03 Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin)
04 talk (Led Zeppelin)
05 Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin)
06 talk (Led Zeppelin)
07 Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)
08 talk (Led Zeppelin)
09 Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
10 talk (Led Zeppelin)
11 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
12 talk (Led Zeppelin)
13 Going to California (Led Zeppelin)
14 talk (Led Zeppelin)
15 That's the Way (Led Zeppelin)
16 talk (Led Zeppelin)
17 What Is and What Should Never Be (Led Zeppelin)
18 talk (Led Zeppelin)
19 Whole Lotta Love Medley (Led Zeppelin)
20 Boogie Chillun - Bottle It Up and Go - Fixin' to Die - That's Alright Mama - For What It's Worth (Led Zeppelin)
21 A Mess of Blues (Led Zeppelin)
22 Honey Bee - The Lemon Song [Killing Floor] (Led Zeppelin)
23 Whole Lotta Love [Reprise] (Led Zeppelin)
24 talk (Led Zeppelin)
25 Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
26 Communication Breakdown - Feel So Bad - Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin)
27 talk (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hFitM

There are no photos that I know of from the show in question. So instead, for the cover art, I've used a photo from Montreux, Switzerland, on August 7, 1971. Unfortunately, like the last cover in this series, drummer John Bonham didn't make it in the frame.