Stockholm 1969 (No Label)
Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden – March 14, 1969
(71:30) Soundboard Reel Master Pre-Broadcast FM Recording: I Can’t Quit You Baby, I Gotta Move, Dazed And Confused, How Many More Times. Audience Recording 1st Generation Tape: Intro, Train Kept A Rollin’, I Can’t Quit You Baby, I Gotta Move, Dazed And Confused, White Summer / Black Mountain Side, How Many More Times, Outro
Led Zeppelin’s performance in Stockholm, Sweden on their short Scandinavian tour in mid March 1969 is rather famous in trading circles thanks to a short 24 minute fragment of a soundboard recording. The recording is most notable for the inclusion of an impromptu version of Otis Rush’s I Gotta Move, Jimmy Page was tending to a broken string so Plant, Bonham, and Jones played a bit of Chicago Blues. So popular was the recording it was a natural for bootleggers dating back to the days of vinyl. Blow Ones Cool (Grasshopper GH-104 A-B), Led Zeppelin (K&S LZ 171 A-B), Spare Parts (Toasted 2S 913A-D), and as part of the massive 70 LP Final Option set. The compact disc age has given us these titles, Stockholm (Kaleidoscopic KM CD 1), Missing Links (The Diagrams Of Led Zeppelin TDOLZ Vol. 081), Hampton Kicks (House of Elrond AP-2001), Kicks (Tarantura K&S 974), A Secret History Of Led Zeppelin (92-LZ-13-06), Final Rendez-vous (Godfatherecords G.R.865/866), and The Valkyrie’s Vigil (Tarantura TCD 94-97).
Years ago an audience recording surfaced that provided the near complete picture of the performance, the quality is poor, distant, muffled, overloaded and lacking any dynamics, yet it is clear enough to discern what is going on and once your ears adjust, one can actually listen to it, although does not garner repeated spins. Rock Of Ages (The Diagrams of Led Zeppelin TDOLZ-83/84) featured this recording in full while Empress Valley used this recording to fill the gaps of the soundboard portion on their Super Session At Tivolis Koncertsal (Empress Valley Supreme Disc EVSD-445). It has taken some time, but the folks at No Label have finally given collectors a nice release featuring both recordings separately on one CD.
While there are several really good sounding versions of the soundboard, I pulled out the Kaleidoscopic and Godfather titles, this new No Label title trumps them both quite easily. The sound is clear with virtually no hiss, has not been over amplified like some titles, the bottom end is simply wonderful and is simply a joy to listen to. The audience version found on TDOLZ label notoriously runs a bit slow, this new version runs at the correct speed and sounds similar.
The performance itself is really good, the previous tour of America has done much for the band, their playing is tight and confident. The unique thing about the audience tape is that it provides the correct running order, it more than makes sense Page broke a string after the ferocious opener Train Kept A Rollin’. Dazed and Confused clocks in at just over 10 minutes, one forgets how strong the early versions of this song are, free of clutter and straight to the point with a perfect blend of musicianship and sheer aggression. Plant tries to get the band to go into Communication Breakdown during How Many More times but they don’t bite and all we get is a few lines, quite interesting though.
The packaging is simple, black and white and color live shots of the band on inserts, the inner front features the same four pictures Kaleidoscopic used on their ancient Copenhagen title. Picture CD and stickers, it’s all here packaged in a jewel case. This title was reasonable priced and the sound on it is really good making it an attractive tile to grab.
3 Comments
Where is my quality control ? qul006b thanks for catching my mistake, you are correct I Gotta Move follows Train ! I had it right in my review just not track listing.
I own the 70LP Final option. I’ll have to pull this out and give it a spin.
Good review! However, if the running order of the audience tape on this cd is as written above it is wrong. I Gotta Move was played before I Can’t Quit You Baby, because of the broken string. When Robert introduces “a thing by Otis Rush” he’s referring to ICQYB. Not the so-called I Gotta Move fragment. There is no such song ever recorded or written by Otis Rush. Swedish Radio changing the running order of those two songs for the broadcast is what created this confusion.
Actually noone has been able to find a version of any song matching Robert’s lyrics here so it seems to be a short blues improvisation while Jimmy is changing string.