Led Zeppelin
1970-03-07
Montreux Casino
Montreux
Switzerland
"Intimidator"
Montreux Casino, Montreux, Switzerland
Empress Valley Supreme Disc (EVSD 72/73/74)
Source: AUD + SBD (to fill gaps)
discs 1,2 - combination of aud/sbd
disc 3 - sbd
101. We're Gonna Groove
102. I Can't Quit You Baby
103. Dazed and Confused
104. Heartbreaker
105. White Summer / Black Mountain Side
106. Since I've Been Loving You
201. Organ Solo
202. Thank You
203. What Is and What Should Never Be
204. Moby Dick
205. How Many More Times
206. Whole Lotta Love (cut after 3 minutes)
301. We're Gonna Groove
302. I Can't Quit You Baby
303. Dazed and Confused
304. White Summer
305. How Many More Times
306. Whole Lotta Love
This set comes packaged in Empress Valley's unique "long box" design case. The outer sleeve is open-ended on both sides and a heavy cardboard "tray" slides in/out. The tray has an opening carved out of the middle that the 3 discs rest in. Each disc is housed in a cream-colored paper sleeve with the Empress Valley logo printed in gold in the lower right corner. The first two discs of this three CD set contains the complete show taken from an excellent audience source. The last disc contains fragments from the soundboard. Disc one starts out at the end of the band introductions. A quick sound check follows and the boys plow right into We're Gonna Groove. The audience tape perfectly captures the atmosphere of the event and displays a stunning feeling of depth. The instruments and vocals are very well balanced with Bonzo perhaps a teenie bit low in the overall. There's a 4 second gap in the tape during We're Gonna Groove that Empress Valley plugged in with an inferior quality tape. The next tape swap is during the final minutes of White Summer. About 80 seconds of the alternate tape is used to plug the hole. When the tape swaps to the alternate source, the depth and atmosphere of the main source becomes painfully obvious. Empress Valley's way of moving from one disc to the other is as follows - Disc one fades out during the intro to the organ solo. Disc two starts off replaying several seconds of the end of disc one. I know some guys don't care for this, but I don't mind. If someone wanted to transfer the set to, say, DAT, a seamless link from disc one to disc two could be achieved. The twenty five minute version of How Many More Times is fabulous. At around the 9 minute mark as see the first appearance of the soundboard tape. It's damn near seamlessly spliced into the audience tape. The board tape is excellent quality, but pales in comparison to the audience tape as it lacks the atmosphere and feeling of depth that the audience tape has. I'm not complaining though as it fills in the remainder of the otherwise incomplete How Many More Times. This is crucial as the medley section of HMMT is fantastic! Whole Lotta Love is just a three minute fragment from the soundboard. The last disc is from the soundboard and, as previously noted, pales in comparison to the stunning audience tape. It is overpowered at times, has dropouts, muddied audio and so on. A rather pitiful soundboard tape. Either Empress Valley wanted to milk every last dime out of their customers or they simply wanted to present all available material in one package. It's not my call. This is an essential addition to any collection and I can't recommend it enough!
I added the "complete" Whole Lotta Love at the end of Disc 2 as extra track, as provided by dadgad. It clocks in at 5:29 while on Intimidator it cuts at 3:05. Replace Disc 2 track 6 with this track and you get it as complete as it's available at the moment.
http://rapidshare.com/files/164683830/19700307.part1.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/164687950/19700307.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/164692817/19700307.part3.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/164697473/19700307.part4.rar.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/164701509/19700307.part5.rar.html
