Led Zeppelin - Live In Japan [Prof. Stoned 2021]
01. The Immigrant Song
02. Heartbreaker
03. Since I've Been Loving You
04. Black Dog
05. Dazed And Confused
06. Stairway To Heaven
07. Celebration Day
08. Bron-y-Aur Stomp
09. That's The Way
10. Going to California
11. Tangerine
12. Friends
13. What Is And What Should Never Be
14. Moby Dick
15. Communication Breakdown
16. Rock'n'Roll
Time: 02h06m41s
All Tracks are Mono
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Recorded to 16-Track by Warner Pioneer on 28-29 September 1971, Festival Hall, Osaka, JP
Mixdown by 'unknown'
Compiled & Remastered by PS
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Sources:
- How The East Was Won (2xCD, Unofficial) EVSD 1056/57 Japan 2018
- Live In Osaka 928 (3xCD, Unofficial) EVSD 1255/1256/1257 Japan 2020
- Stairway To Heaven (CD, Smplr, Unofficial) EVSD-LS-002 Japan 2018
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Note:
These two shows were recorded professionally by the Japanese division of Atlantic Records, supposedly because the band's contract stipulated such. It has been rumored that the other three shows from this tour were recorded as well. Page reviewed the recordings in the early 2000s for possible use but ended up going with two USA shows from 1972 as the source material for the excellent "How the West Was Won" (2003). He commented in an interview that the Japan shows were poorly recorded.
This proved to be a bit of a falsehood when an excellent rough mix of a large chunk of the 29-9 show was released in 2018 by a Japanese bootleg company. Although mono, it has a superb balance for the most part, making it easily one of the best sounding Zep boots ever. If anything, it demonstrates that everything was well captured on tape. But the source material on the bootleg is not without its flaws. There is some loss of fidelity and tape hiss, indicating that this was probably not taken from an actual mastertape.
A soundboard recording of the 28-9 show first saw the light in 2020, again at the hand of the same bootleggers. Although longer in length than the 29-9 tape, the sound is of notable lesser quality. The mix itself is a bit rougher and the source material seems to have been a copy (of a copy) from cassette tape, causing the bootleggers to use excessive noise reduction to reduce the hiss levels.
So, what we have here are two incomplete sources of varying quality. This compilation uses the 29-9 tape as its foundation, and the 28-9 tape to flesh it out with its unique content (mainly the acoustic section). The material has been sequenced in actual order but not all of what is on the bootlegs has been used here. The idea was to make it flow like an actual live album, rather than a complete unedited show with all the 'silly' bits intact. The only song that's missing here is Whole Lotta Love, which was played right after Moby Dick but was omitted on both bootleg sources.
I have remastered everything with the greatest care at my studio and I think the final result speaks for itself. I will not call it on par with an official release (although it's certainly much better than Olympia '69), but for a casual fan who wants to go further than just HTWWW, TSRTS, The DVD and the BBC concert, this might be your next best stop. Enjoy!
PS (July, 2021)
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