Collectors Music Reviews

Destroyer (Eelgrass EGL-20226/27/28)

Disc 1: The Song Remains The Same, The Rover Introduction : Sick Again, Nobody’s Fault But Mine, In My Time Of Dying, Since I’ve Been Loving You, No Quarter

Disc 2: Ten Years Gone, The Battle of Evermore, Going To California, Black Country Woman, Bron-Yr-Stomp, White Summer, Black Mountain Side, Kashmir

Disc 3: Out On The Tiles : Moby Dick, Guitar Solo (Includes Star Spangled Banner), Achilles Last Stand, Stairway To Heaven, Rock And Roll, Trampled Underfoot

Of all the Led Zeppelin tapes in circulation, none are more popular that this soundboard recording.  Beginning in the early eighties, there have been countless releases on both vinyl and compact disc.  Destroyeron Eelgrass is the fourth silver release in the past year.  Like all of the releases on this label, it is a copy of an Empress Valley release, this one being of Maximum Destroyer.  The Empress Valley is a five disc set with the show on both DVDA and CD, but Eelgrass wisely chose to copy only the audio discs.  And this release is among the best sounding versions of this show.  It comes from the low generation remastered tape that was first pressed on the no label Destroyer which sounds fantastic.  The only concern is that the volume could have been higher, and that is precisely the difference between that release and this one.

The initial concern was a minor one (since an adjustment of the volume on the stereo is all that was necessary to fix it).  However one can’t deny how great this release sounds.  The only way this show can be improved in the future would be if the missing parts of the show were to surface (which probably won’t happen).  The performance has its critics, there are some highlights too including the greatest living performance of “Ten Years Gone” on record.  The acoustic set is very strong as is “Achilles Last Stand.”  The package is simple yet effective with the inserts being printed on both sides with many dramatic photos of Page taken from the tour.  Since the Empress Valley is hard to find and very highly priced, Eelgrass offers an excellent, cost effective version of the definitive version of this show and is recommended.       

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