Raid Over Brussels (Electric Magic EMC-010A/B/C)
outer slip cover
Raid Over Brussels (Electric Magic EMC-010A/B/C)
front cover
Voorst National, Brussels, Belgium – June 20th, 1980
Soundboard recording
Disc 1 (61:39): The Train Kept A Rollin’, Nobody’s Fault But Mine, Black Dog, In The Evening, The Rain Song, Hot Dog, All My Love, Trampled Underfoot, Since I’ve Been Loving You
Disc 2 (59:53): Achilles Last Stand, White Summer/Black Mountain Side, Kashmir, Stairway To Heaven, Rock and Roll, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Boogie Chillun)
Audience recording
Disc 3 (58:43): The Train Kept A Rollin’, Nobody’s Fault But Mine, Black Dog, In The Evening, The Rain Song, Hot Dog, All My Love, Trampled Underfoot, Since I’ve Been Loving You
Disc 4 (61:52): Achilles Last Stand, White Summer/Black Mountain Side, Kashmir, Stairway To Heaven, Rock and Roll, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Boogie Chillun)
Raid Over Brussels is a 2001 release on Electric Magic who at that time were one of the better Led Zeppelin labels devoted to pressing new audience recordings. The focus of this release is to present a new, very good sounding but incomplete recording from the June 20th show from Brussels, the third show of Led Zeppelin’s final tour. EM package it in a four disc set with the soundboard recording of the same show.
The soundboard recording has been in circulation sing the late eighties with several releases on vinyl. The Brussels Affair (The Swingin’ Pig Records TSP 073) has this show as does Moonlight (Waggle WAG 1938) with material from Frankfurt and Bremen, and Platinum (Waggle WAG 1937). The earliest CD titles appeared in 1989 with Live In Brussels (Hocus Pocus LZ2891980), Platinum (Toasted Condor 1982) with the first hour of the show and Straightjacket (Toasted Condor 1983) with the second half of the show and with two tracks from Bremen. Brussels Affair (The Swingin’ Pig TSP-CD-073-2) was issued in 1990 with much of the Plantations edited out and missing part of “Hot Dog” and “Whole Lotta Love” along with “The Rain Song.”
“In The Evening” (On Stage CD 12005) contains about an hour of this show out of sequence on one disc and was released in 1994. Lost Horizon (Lobster CD 013/3) has the Brussels soundboard along with the June 30th Frankfurt show spread out over three cds. Chein Noir (Antrabata ARM 20680, 20680, 230680, 230680) is a four disc set with the Bremen soundboard in improved quality and Tarantura issued the tape on Brussels 1980 (Tarantura 1980-5, 6) in 1996 and “Whole Lotta Love” appears on disc eight of the Cabala boxset. The last release of this tape, coming two years after Electric Magic, is Belgian Triple (Empress Valley EVSD-232 – 237) a six disc set with the May 28th, 1972 and January 12th, 1975 concerts in Belgium. Empress Valley used the audience recording to fill in the cuts in the soundboard tape.
The new audience recording is a bit distant but clear with a good live sound. There are people speaking in French around the taper but their conversations generally are not intrusive. The tape is missing the first minute of “All My Love” which EM filled by editing in the beginning of the older tape source. There is another cut in the middle of “Trampled Underfoot” which eliminates three minutes of the guitar solo. Unlike the previous cut, no attempt was made to fix this gap. Both the soundboard and audience recordings run slightly slow. It is a shame because this is one of Electric Magic’s finest efforts which could have been much better. The packaging is really nice with the air raid warden on the front cover over the Complete Studio Recordings box design over a fatboy jewel case with several pictures from the tour and is limited to one hundred fifty numbered copies.
