Led Zeppelin - The Old Refectory, Southampton University, Southampton, Britain, 1-22-1973

How much do you value a spirited performance vs. sound quality? I recently looked at some Led Zeppelin social forums, and this is considered quite possibly THE best sounding live recording of the band, even though it's a bootleg. It's not just a soundboard; this was a professionally done multi-track recording that somehow got leaked to the public. I think the sound quality is freaking amazing. 

The downside for die-hard fans is that this was considered merely a good night for the band, not an outstanding one. But I think that's nitpicking. The band sure sounded "on" to me. I'd much rather listen to this than some supposedly great performance that's buried in hiss and muck.

As amazing as this sounded already, I think I made it sound even better. I used the audio editing program UVR5 to make a few changes. For starters, the lead vocals were a bit low, so I boosted them for all the songs. There also were occasional sections of songs when the vocals were especially low - perhaps lead singer Robert Plant wasn't singing close enough to the microphone. So I took care to give those spots an extra boost, sometimes adjusting line by line. I also boosted the banter between songs so the talking could be heard better over the crowd noise. Finally, the applause was rather low, which is common for soundboards. I also boosted that for most of the songs.

Oh, one more edit I made was that I cut the length of some of the applause way down. Towards the end of the show, there were several encore breaks with cheering that lasted for three or four minutes at times. It's boring for me to hear nothing but applause for that long, so I cut those down to a minute or two each instead.

One other great thing about this concert is that it was played in a small venue of only a few hundred people. That's extraordinary, because by 1973, Led Zeppelin was one of the biggest musical acts on the planet. Their 1971 album "Led Zeppelin IV" sold over 20 million copies, making it one of the top ten best selling albums of all time. I'm not sure why they deigned to play such a small place in 1973, but maybe it was part of a plan to record this for a possible live album. Whatever the case, that helped even more with the sound quality. It's as if the band was still playing small clubs like they did when they started in early 1969, only with a set list that included tons of classics like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Black Dog." Frankly, I don't understand why this recording isn't a lot better known, or even officially released.

At the time of this concert, the band's next album "Houses of the Holy" was still two months away from being released. But a few songs from that album were played anyway: "The Song Remains the Same," "Over the Hills and Far Away," "The Rain Song," and "Dancing Days." They also did a 23-minute long version of "Whole Lotta Love" that effectively have some full versions of interesting cover songs inside it, such as "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" and "Let's Have a Party."

I'm still working my way through understanding Led Zeppelin bootlegs. If anyone knows of other "best of the best" shows with outstanding sound quality like this one that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. I'd especially like to fill in some gaps by finding the best shows from 1975 and 1977.

This concert is two hours and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Led Zeppelin)
02 Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin)
03 Over the Hills and Far Away (Led Zeppelin)
04 talk (Led Zeppelin)
05 Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)
06 Misty Mountain Hop (Led Zeppelin)
07 Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin)
08 talk (Led Zeppelin)
09 Dancing Days (Led Zeppelin)
10 talk (Led Zeppelin)
11 The Song Remains the Same (Led Zeppelin)
12 The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin)
13 talk (Led Zeppelin)
14 Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
15 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
16 talk (Led Zeppelin)
17 Whole Lotta Love - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
18 Boogie Chillun’ - [You're So Square] Baby I Don't Care (Led Zeppelin)
19 Let's Have a Party (Led Zeppelin)
20 I Can't Quit You Babe - Whole Lotta Love [Reprise] (Led Zeppelin)
21 talk (Led Zeppelin)
22 Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin)
23 talk (Led Zeppelin)
24 Organ Solo [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
25 Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
26 talk (Led Zeppelin)
27 How Many More Times - The Hunter - How Many More Times (Led Zeppelin)
28 Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ajuQF

The good news is, the cover photo shows Led Zeppelin at this exact venue. The bad news is, it's from the one previous time they played there, on March 11, 1971. So, two years earlier. But I figure the band members more or less looked the same, and this photo gives you a sense of just how small the stage was. I did find a few photos from the correct date, but they were only black and white (and not easily colorized), and none of them are as well composed as this one is.