The Balloon Boy’s Rock Carnival In Tokyo (Empress Valley EVSD 513/514/515)
Budokan, Tokyo, Japan – September 24th, 1971
Disc 1: Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Since I’ve Been Loving You, Black Dog, Dazed And Confused
Disc 2: Stairway To Heaven, Celebration Day, That’s The Way, Going To California, Tangerine, What Is And What Should Never Be, Moby Dick
Disc 3: Whole Lotta Love, organ solo, Thank You, Communication Breakdown
Empress Valley apparantly use the complete source that was used for discs two and three of TDOLZ’s Light And Shade. This tape is marred by excessive distortion making it basically unlistenable. When CMR asked a collector to write a review, he refused, saying he didn’t want to sit through this again. I wonder if Empress Valley will release another 1975 soundboard for collectors instead of stuff like this….
5 Comments
There’s 8 known sources for the 09/23/71 show and 5 for the 09/24/71.
Pedro Moya If you’re asking me my opinion of whether or not I think The Balloon Boy’s Rock Carnival In Tokyo (Empress Valley EVSD 513/514/515) is superior to TDOLZ Light & Shade then it’s my opinion that EV’s release is superior.
I own LIGHT & SHADE and I’m wondering if getting this one is a good idea. I just listened to disk 2 & 3 of L&S and find them perfectly listenable, although they are a bit rough the amazing performance makes up for it.
How come there are so many sources from the first night and so little for this second show?
PS: LedMan please post your correction!
Although this source/release does focus on the low end, it’s not as bad as I first thought. I finished listening to “Light And Shade” from the “Live In Tokyo:1971” box on TDOLZ and agree with Bootledz that this latest release is superior and debuts the complete source which is mentioned above. For collectors that prefer a title which contains near perfect audio, I would suggest you not add this to your collection. I mentioned before in several reviews that I listen to my music through a EQ system and I discovered this weekend that within the last couple of weeks I had engaged the bass boost and that’s why I couldn’t stand listening to this. My apologies to Zep collectors and once I discovered my mistake I mentioned to the webmaster that I would be posting a correction.
Thanks for confirming the forseeable inferiority of this title, although I’m sure this information has arrived a bit too late for the collectors who unfortunately paid good money for this title based on EVSD’s misrepresentation that it might be something new. A new 1975 Zep sounboard would be great, but the continuing trend over the past year or so (save “Powhatan Confederacy”) is that EVSD has nothing positive to add while riding on the coattails of some remarkable releases from prior years. It’s the stench of fraud on collectors that, for me, has forever stained EVSD as no longer being a label of legitimate Zep recordings, such as Sigma is for their great Pink Floyd titles for collectors of that band’s work.