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16 May, 2024
All good thanks
All good thanks
04 Jun, 2019
IMHO 'live' Zeppelin at their best (referring to the original album/CD, NOT the remasters)
4 of 4 found this helpful To be clear: I am reviewing the original CD of the album, not the subsequent re-edited/remixed/remastered versions, which I don't like so much. More on that later.
I bought this album on vinyl back in the late 70s. I absolutely loved it. Especially No Quarter, Dazed and Confused, Whole Lotta Love, The Song Remains the Same/Rain Song, Stairway to Heaven, Whole Lotta Love, Moby Dick... ok that's nearly all of it!
I always particularly liked Jimmy Page's guitar tone; a fair bit of Marshall valve amp crunch, but not too much. To my ears there's a wonderful solo guitar tone on No Quarter & Stairway to Heaven. Robert Plant's voice is in fine form as well. I love John Paul Jones' electric piano playing on No Quarter. The sound of the electric piano (Fender Rhodes) with some phasing is wonderful, I much prefer it to the studio version. And it goes without saying that John Bonham was probably the best rock drummer who ever lived. A tragedy he died so young.
It has always intrigued me that the surviving members of Zeppelin apparently don't rate TSRTS very highly. (You can web-search for what they have said about it if you're interested). It's a matter of personal preference I guess.
In 1977 TSRTS was the only live Zeppelin I had ever heard, but over the decades since I've now heard a huge number of Zeppelin bootlegs, & there have been a fair number of official releases of live Zeppelin material too, but I still take the view that none of them are as good as the original album version of TSRTS.
To be fair, it does seem that a fair amount of post production was done on this project even before its first release. The soundtrack of the cinema version of the film was always different from the album, & I always preferred the album to the film soundtrack. Maybe the reason Zeppelin aren't too keen on TSRTS is because of all the post-production that was involved to fix things.
Be aware that Zeppelin have subsequently remixed/re-edited/remastered the audio and the newer versions of TSRTS are radically different from the original album release. The 2018 version has a different EQ, & the guitar/bass/drums do definitely sound more punchy. It sounds like heavy use of a compressor and some remixing/re-EQ.
But on the not so positive side, in the remixing/remastering/re-editing process Zeppelin have also introduced some other changes to the audio, & they're not all to my liking. I won't attempt to list them here, it'll take too long. But below are a few examples.
In the original cinema film version of TSRTS the six string neck of Jimmy Page's doubleneck guitar is slightly out of tune in the beginning section of 'Stairway to Heaven'. The mellotron is out of tune as well. (I used to have the film version on VHS, & before that saw it many times at the cinema in the late 70s, early 80s). But on the original vinyl album version (& first CD release version) not only is the mellotron fixed but the guitar tuning is ok - because it's definitely a different guitar take. I don't know whether that's because the cinema/album versions are from two different nights at Madison Square Garden (Zeppelin performed three shows there in July 1973), or for some other reason (studio overdubs?).
But in the 2018 remixed/re-edited remaster CD of TSRTS, although the dodgy mellotron tuning has been fixed, the guitar is now slightly out of tune at the start of Stairway.
There are editing issues too with the remastered version. Sections of tracks (like No Quarter near the guitar solo and Whole Lotta Love) have been removed completely. A different phasing has been used on a drum section in No Quarter, it doesn't sound anything like as dramatic as the original mix. Other cuts have been made as well. (Web search "the Garden Tapes" for someone's detailed analysis).
In summary, I would say that the original vinyl and CD version of the album is greatly superior to the 2018 re-edited version, because the original doesn't introduce to the album version some of the flaws of the film soundtrack, which the 2018 remaster does.
I used to have this album on vinyl (bought it in 1977), then bought it again on CD in the 1990s. I recently bought the 2018 remaster, as I had long since lost my copy of the CD from the 1990s. But when I heard the flaws which the 2018 remaster had introduced to the album I was very disappointed & immediately went online to track down a second hand copy of the album on CD from the 1990s.
It's just a real shame that anyone who buys TSRTS on CD now, who has never heard the original, will probably never realise how inferior the 2018 remaster/re-edited version is to the original in respect of the glitches that the 2018 version introduces to the album - glitches that weren't there in the original album version.
If you're a Zeppelin fan and don't have the original TSRTS, I'd highly recommend it over the subsequent remasters. It's just a shame the original is no longer available new.
16 May, 2024
All good thanks
All good thanks