New York In The Wind (Empress Valley EVSD- 312/313)
Fillmore East, New York, NY – January 31st & February 1st, 1969
Disc 1 January 31st: The Train Kept A Rollin’, I Can’t Quit You, Dazed And Confused, Pat’s Delight, How Many More Times (inc. The Hunter), You Shook Me
Disc 2 February 1st: Introduction, White Summer/Black Mountain Side, The Train Kept A Rollin’, I Can’t Quit You, Pat’s Delight, How Many More Times (inc. Dazed And Confused/ The Hunter), Communication Breakdown
These two legendary concerts from Zeppelin’s first tour really need no introduction. These are the nights at the Fillmore East when they blew Iron Butterfly off the stage and really began their domination of the music scene in the 1970’s. These two tight, compact sets are amazing to hear and represent Zeppelin in their adventurous younger days. How many other bands would have a drum solo in an important, forty minute set? They knew they were good!
The tapes are distant and are definitely not the best. It is hoped that someday these will surface with better sound. But EV has equalized the tape to make it sound much louder and enjoyable than the older releases from the 90s. There is another release of these tapes from the Beelzebub CDR label called In The Heat Of The Night which is superior.
New York In The Wind is a continuation of their Legendary Fillmore series that began with Avocado Club in March 2004, documenting two of the four nights in San Francisco in April 1969. The next release in this series hopefully will be the November, 1969 Fillmore West concerts in San Francisco. That will be a welcome release given how the manufactures have all but ignored Zeppelin’s fourth US tour of 1969.
2 Comments
Hager is correct. In The Heat Of The Night on Beelzebub is the superior release and is recommended over the Empress Valley.
I have Beelzebub’s “In the Heat of the Night” title containing these two shows, but, similar to Mr. Sparaco, don’t have the comparative EV release, and see no need for it. This may be Beelzebub’s finest effort, which I believe was that dubious label’s very first release. The sound from the January 31st show is relatively clear, very powerful, and something I can imagine the Iron Butterfly dreading. While “Pat’s Delight” was dropped right in the middle of the set, it’s awesome to hear how wildly the crowd reacts to Bonzo. Maybe it was Iron Butterfly’s drummer who decided he wouldn’t play, with that rudimentary solo (although classic) he did during “In A Gadda Da Vida” no match for the creativity and extreme chops displayed by Mr. Bonham. Zep does perform superior versions of “How Many More Times” and “You Shook Me” afterward, so the crowd was treated to an amazing show by the warm-up band. The second night, February 1st, is of poorer quality and not a very enjoyable listen. It’s muddy, distant, and distorted. In possibly a sign of things to come, the last track on disc 2 (all of Beelzebub’s titles have been on CD-R) is a 20:34 version of “Communication Breakdown”. Of course, the song is only about 4:00 long, with the remaining 16:00+ minutes being dead silence. Beelzebub’s packaging is pretty cool, too, being a bi-fold heavy paper case with pictures from the shows and an interesting, colorful collage on the front of the case. Given the quality of these recordings, I doubt one release of these 2 shows is significantly better than the other.