Without realizing it, over the years I ended up purchasing physical copies of most of Led Zeppelin’s recorded Seattle shows. As best I can tell the might Zep played here 11 times if you count an appearance in Woodinville in 1969 for the Seattle Pop Festival. Six of the shows, those from 1972 to 1977, have good enough quality live fan recordings to have warranted release. The two 1972 shows from June 18-19 were the last missing from my collection, and fortunately for me the Japanese label Wendy recently put out a 4xCD set capturing them.
Top Row: July 17, 1973 show on vinyl and CD
Middle Row: March 17 & 21, 1975 shows on vinyl and CD
Bottom Row: June 18-19, 1972 CD (left) and July 17, 1977 CD (right)
If any of the shows from 1970 and earlier came out, I haven’t seen/heard them. Maybe they exist… maybe they don’t. If you know of ’em, send me a note.
Anyway… the Japanese labels generally do a very good job with cleaning up these old recordings. This particular version is on a label called Wendy, which appears to primarily exist as a way to put out live Led Zeppelin shows – it came with an insert showing close to 200 different titles available on CD and DVD. However, it’s hardly the first time the 1972 shows have come out – there have been CD versions of one or both of these shows going back to at least the 1990s.
The first disc is eight tracks from the June 18 concert. With a run time of 48 minutes or so, one can only assume it isn’t the entire show. What it does have, however, are some big hitters – “Immigrant Song”, “Heartbreaker”, “Black Dog”, “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, “Stairway to Heaven”, and “Going to California” (the other two tracks are pre-show stage announcements and something simply called “Drone”). The sound quality is pretty good – better than I’m used to hearing from 1970s vinyl live pressings from other shows, but not as good as recordings like the 1977 Seattle show. The sound is a bit tinny and flat, though the balance is decent enough. Arguably the guitar has the best overall feel of all the sonic elements.
The other three discs consist of the June 19 show featuring 22 tracks. I note that the six June 18 tracks are six of the first seven on the June 19 show as well, in the same order, implying that Zep had some consistency in their set list on this tour (the exception is “The Ocean”, which appears between “Black Dog” and “Since I’ve Been Loving You” in the June 19 recording).
Unfortunately the June 19 recordings aren’t as good as those from the prior day. The sound is flat, particularly lacking in low end, and Plant’s vocals frequently veer into the red and blow out. We also pick up a bit more crowd noise, including outright crowd conversations as the show progresses It’s not unlistenable, mind you – it’s certainly better than many if not most of the live Zep vinyl recordings from the 70s and 80s that I’ve heard. But you can do better, like with the aforementioned 1977 Seattle show.
The biggest thing Seattle 1972 has going for it is that it appears to capture the entire show, whereas so many other Zeppelin live releases are only subsets. Is it worth getting? I’m not sure there are any particularly rare songs included, though I feel like “What Is And What Should Never Be” doesn’t show up on too many recordings. As for covers, there is a cover of “Money” listed on disc four but… also some additional covers buried within some other tracks on the same disc – “Only the Lonley” and “Heartbreak Hotel” are part of track #1, and “Louie, Louie” is part of track #3, which are some nice Easter Eggs.