Rhino Factoids: Rare Zeppelin
Six years ago today, a discovery was made at a UK flea market that made Led Zeppelin fans shriek with glee while also moaning, “Why couldn’t I have found that?”
Actually, the phrase “flea market” is one we chose for simplicity’s sake, as we’re not sure how many of our American readers are familiar with the term “boot sale,” but it’s basically where people gather together in parking lots and sell stuff out of the trunks of their cars. In this particular instance, a gentleman named Vic Kemp will likely be eternally thankful that he decided to pop by and take a look at the available merchandise, as the end result was that he became the owner of the only known recording of Led Zeppelin’s November 16, 1971 gig at St Matthew's Baths Hall in Ipswich, England.
“I was going through a stand of CDs at the car boot at Portman Road, and the guy who was selling them said, ‘You might be interested in this,’” Kemp told the Evening Star. “It must have been recorded by someone standing at the front with a microphone. You can hear Robert Plant talking to the audience quite clearly.”
The set list for the performance was as follows:
Immigrant Song Heartbreaker lack Dog Since I've Been Loving You Rock and Roll Stairway to Heaven Going to California That's the Way Tangerine Dazed and Confused What Is and What Should Never Be Celebration Day Whole Lotta Love (done as a medley and including Let That Boy Boogie, Hello Mary Lou, Mess of Blues, Honey Bee, and Going Down Slow) Weekend (Eddie Cochran cover) Gallows Pole
The performance has never been officially released, which means that Kemp’s got one heck of a collector’s item on his hands, but for your listening enjoyment, we’ve put together a playlist which features the original studio recordings of all the songs on the album except for two: there’s no officially-released live version of “Whole Lotta Love” which offers the exact same medley of songs, so we’ve thrown in the version from How the West Was Won, and the band never released a version of “Weekend,” so we figured you wouldn’t complain if we just included Cochan’s original version in its place.
