Collectors Music Reviews

Royal Albert Hall 1970 (Celebration SOBO-015)

Introduction, We’re Gonna Groove, I Can’t Quit You, White Summer/Black Mountain Side, How Many More Times (incl.  The Hunter, Boogie Chillun’, Truckin Little Mama, Leave My Woman Alone, Lemon Song, That’s Alright), Whole Lotta Love, Communication Breakdown, C’mon Everybody, Something Else, Bring It On Home, Long Tall Sally (incl. Move On Down The Line, Whole Lotta Shaking Going On)

This title by Celebration represents the best version of the January 9, 1970 show at the Royal Albert Hall. It was released with a forty-two minute, upgraded version of the film shot that night for the planned Led Zeppelin documentary film that was never realized. The CD that comes with the VHS videotape is the most complete and best sounding version of this often booted show.  Celebration combines both the video soundtrack and the soundboard (released many years ago) into the set list order.  Where the soundtrack and soundboard overlap, Celebration uses the soundboard recording. The chief virtues of this release, beyond the sterling sound quality, is for the first time we have all of the material from this show on one disc in the approximate set list order.  (Which means only the beginning and the end of the show exist on tape). Second, the tape speed on the soundboard recording has been corrected, as it ran very slow on previous releases.  Until the middle section of this show surfaces, this will be the definitive title for this show.

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