Led Zeppelin: 1980-06-21 Rotterdan, The Netherlands (FLAC_SB/AUD 3 Source Mix_2 CD)

Here is a requested show from just a couple of months short of 36 years ago at the time of this posting.  This is a great-to-excellent sounding recording of a 1980 Led Zeppelin show I have never uploaded anything from before.  This is the complete show minus a little chatter between "Stairway To Heaven" and "Rock and Roll" reportedly.

This was the band's fourth show as they started out on the European leg of their 1980 touring.  This would be their very last tour ever.

This audio is composed of a three sources mix.  The soundboard first generation, audience source 1 first generation, and audience source 2 master recordings were all used in the mix to make the show as complete as possible.  Musically, it is complete.

LINEAGE:
(1) SB: 1st Gen cassette > DAT (x) > CD-R (2) > FLAC
(2) AUD Source 1: 1st Gen cassette > DAT (1) > CD-R (2) > FLAC
(3) AUD Source 2: Master > CD-R (5) > FLAC
(4) me > TLH > WAV (to test for lossiness) > Audacity (to view waveform, embed metadata/track titles & info, and then to re-encode) > FLAC 8 > TLH (to check for SBE's and create and verify new ffp & md5 files) > you

NOTES (copy & paste of "weedwacker" text file):
"Complete show minus some audience cheering between Stairway To Heaven/Rock And Roll. An alternate source audience recording aka source 2(different from the one used for the TDOLZ release) was used for the first four songs, the beginning of The Rain Song and between All Of My Love/Trampled Underfoot. This recording has never been released on any boots and has only circulated among collectors. Source 1 was used to splice in missing audience cheering and Plant talking to the audience between Kashmir/Stairway To Heaven and Stairway To Heaven/Rock And Roll. All sources cut during the cheering between Stairway To Heaven/Rock and Roll.

All tracks sbe and speed corrected.
SBD tracks slowed down -1.26% using audacity.
Speed correction done April 2008."

DETAILS:
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Date: June 21st, 1980
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Venue: Ahoyhallen
Title: Dedicated To Texas
Label: weedwacker
Source: SB/AUD (3 Sources Mix of 1st Gen & Master Sources)
Format: FLAC
CD's: 2
Artwork: Yes
Size: 616 MB
Length: 117:51:28

SETLIST:
CD 1:
101. Train Kept A Rollin'
102. Nobody's Fault But Mine
103. Black Dog
104. In The Evening
105. The Rain Song
106. Hot Dog
107. All My Love
108. Trampled Underfoot
109. Since I've Been Loving You

CD 2:
201. Achilles Last Stand
202. White Summer ~ Black Mountain Side
203. Kashmir
204. Stairway To Heaven
205. Rock And Roll
206. Heartbreaker

LINK:
(1) 1980-06-21 Rotterdam, The Netherlands (SB/AUD 3 Source Mix)

MIRROR:
(1) 1980-06-21 Rotterdam, The Netherlands (SB/AUD 3 Source Mix)

NOTE:
I'm using a free Mega account as a mirror in this upload.  Those of you downloading please leave me a message here or on the Facebook (Community Group or Secret Group) letting me know what works best as far as the links go.  I eventually plan on adding a secondary mirror site to my posts as I've always had until the last year or so.  Your opinion will help me help you.

The sound ranges from great in the audience portions of the show to excellent in the soundboard portions.  The waveform looks great too with no audio clipping.

The beginning audience source runs through the first part of "The Rain Song" where the soundboard kicks in and the sound improves as you might expect.  In the beginning tracks, or the audience portion, there are a few channel dropouts of the audio on  one side.  It quickly returns and doesn't last for more than a second or three.  I'm guessing the taper was either fooling with his recorder's balance or the tape itself over time may have had issues?  I don't know though.  There is no crackling or popping sounds as if the channel's microphone was unplugged or the tape was having issues.

In the soundboard portion, which is the majority of the recording, there are a few sound changes as well.  But it really isn't often and the soundboard audio sounds really clean and excellent.  I wish there was more bottom end frequencies (bass) in the beginning portion of the soundboard recording.  But even without it the show still sounds really nice.

I personally think the show could be made to sound even better with a knowledgeable remastering job done on it.  However, I am glad I have the unaltered copy because that is what you really want.  You cannot "unmaster" or get a recording back to its unaltered state once the work has been done unless you save the original, unaltered audio.  People try and make efforts at back tracking steps to get recordings to sound more natural.  But it never really sounds like the unaltered copy and that unaltered audio is what you want to do a proper remastering of a show with.  You keep the unaltered copy and make a new, remastered copy when trying to improve a show's sound.

I think on disc 1 the best sounding songs, and from a performance and not sound standpoint, are "Trampled Underfoot" and "Since I've Been Loving You".  Jimmy Page adds a little extra part to the end of his "Trampled Underfoot" solo that you don't normally hear.  It's a cool ending to the solo.  And "Since I've Been Loving You" he also plays a heartfelt guitar in.

While I like all Led Zeppelin years live, at the same time the 1980 tour is my least favorite for the band's live shows.  The best songs, songs I recently called staples in their shows, were no longer played and they were cutting their concerts down to shorter shows.  Still, a short two hour show like this one blows away the modern day 80 - 90 minute concerts most artist perform (musically and time wise).  But the band was not quite as energized either in a lot of the 1980 shows.  They didn't sound bad really.  They just didn't usually sound as good.  But one song always seemed to me to sound as if it was saying goodbye in a really sad, but really superbly played way.  It was "Stairway To Heaven" and as you listen to just about any 1980 live version of it you can hear the band sounding excellent but in a way sounding like they were saying goodbye too.  Just listen to the song and Page's solo too in this show.  And after John Henry Bonham died in September of 1980, it was all over.  But they went out strong and still playing live and proudly as Led Zeppelin!

I've got a number of 1980 shows I have never uploaded of Led Zeppelin that I will be uploading soon.  They have been requested for a long time and by a few different people.  I'm just trying to catch up on requests and add a few of my own in the middle as I do so.

I hope you enjoy the show...

Bootradr

SPECIAL NOTICE TO ALL!!!

THESE DOWNLOADS ARE FOR FREE ONLY!  NEVER BUY OR SELL ANY LEGALLY RECORDED BUT ILLEGAL TO SELL SHOWS LIKE THIS ONE.  THIS IS FOR FANS AND FUTURE FANS WHO WANT TO HEAR THE ARTIST'S MUSIC RAW & LIVE BUT NOT OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE OR RELEASED.

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SUPPORT THE ARTISTS BY BUYING THEIR OFFICIALLY RELEASED MATERIAL TOO.

KEEP IT FREE, KEEP IT AVAILABLE, AND MOST OF ALL; KEEP IT LEGAL!!!