Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Day 57: 8/15/1970 New Haven, CT

8/15/1970 New Haven, CT  (? gen)
Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Dazed and Confused, Bring it on Home, Since I've Been Loving You, What is and What Should Never Be, Moby Dick, Whole Lotta Love, Communication Breakdown

The tape begins just before the guitar solo in Immigrant Song. Plant's wails echo over the coda. After Heartbreaker, someone near the taper quips "wow, that was good!" Another audience member comments on Bonzo's "fuckin' gong" during the intro to Dazed and Confused. Plant is on the verge of swallowing his harmonica during Bring it on Home. The tape is a bit fragmentary, losing the beginning and end of most songs. 

Plant delivers a powerful, dynamic performance during Since I've Been Loving You. Whole Lotta Love begins during the medley with Plant running through a number of obscure blues references, including John Lee Hooker's Bottle Up and Go, Roy Orbison's Move on Down the Line, and Muddy Waters's Honey Bee among others. The recording ends with a raucous Communication Breakdown, which features a nearly complete version of Good Times Bad Times (with lyrics!) during the breakdown.

The tape is noisy and overloaded. There is also a very disruptive group of people near the taper who talk, scream, and sing along throughout the show.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1970-08-15 Yale Bowl, New Haven, CT "Rare Short Party" (Image Quality)
Show starts with Immigrant Song, tape drops out a few times, and there is quite a bit of talking around the mic.... "DOWN IN FRONT!" and such. Heartbreaker is next, the quality is about the same, but at least the talking is now mostly between the songs. The show continues, sound is decent, somewhat hissy, still some occasional talking, but the biggest issue is there are several cuts, making for a disjointed listen. The show ends with Moby Dick, Whole Lotta Love (already into the medley part) and an encore Communication Breakdown, which now includes a good chunk of Good Times Bad Times. By this time the crowd around the recorder is quite loud.

Sound is pretty rough overall, and with all the tape cuts, I won't be listening to this one again anytime soon.