Led Zeppelin: 1972-02-29 Brisbane, Australia (FLAC_AUD 2 Sources, 2nd Gen Mix_2 CD)

This show falls into a strange category.  It will have been 43 years ago tomorrow.  But at the same time, tomorrow it will have been 43 years ago yesterday.  Think about it for a minute and it makes sense :-)

So falling in between today and tomorrow (kind of), why not upload it and celebrate its birthday today.  After all, I think it only has a real "birthday" every four years anyhow.

This is a two sources, both second generation tapes mix of the 1972-02-29 Brisbane, Australia Led Zeppelin concert.  This is the "dadgad" remastered copy (no EQ) that has been speed corrected and mixed using the two sources.

This show was the last show in the short Australia and New Zealand tour Led Zeppelin did in February of 1972.  And looking online at the venue this concert was held in, it was a lot smaller than I imagined it would be.  It was tiny compared to the Sydney stage from the photos I looked at.  The guys came to Australia with beards and mustaches and left looking like clean cut young men (well, minus the long hair) :-)

LINEAGE:
Source 2 2nd Gen (primary) and Source 1 2nd Gen (patch) tapes > no info given other than "cleaned, speed corrected, unaltered sound" > FLAC > 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

DETAILS:
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Date: February 29th, 1972
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Venue: Festival Hall
Title: None
Label: None/dadgad
Source: AUD (Source 2 2nd Gen & Source 1 2nd Gen Mix)
Format: FLAC
CD's: 2
Artwork: No
Size: 644 MB
Length: 140:47:62

SETLIST:
CD 1:
01. Immigrant Song
02. Heartbreaker
03. Black Dog
04. Since I've Been Loving You
05. Celebration Day
06. Stairway To Heaven
07. Going To California
08. That's The Way*
09. Tangerine*
10. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp*

CD 2:
01. Dazed And Confused*
02. What Is And What Should Never Be
03. Moby Dick
04. Whole Lotta Love*

* Source 1 (patch source used)

LINK:
(1) 1972-02-29 Brisbane, Australia (AUD 2nd Gen Source 2 & 1 Mix)

This was Led Zeppelin's one and only concert ever in Brisbane, Australia.  The source 2 tape is the primary one with the source 1 tape being used to patch the missing audio.  Source 1 is used for "That's The Way" and "Bron-Yr-Aaur Stomp" as well as the first minutes of "Dazed and Confused", "Whole Lotta Love", and the "Going Down Slow" medley section in "Whole Lotta Love" according to "dadgad's" notes.  He also noted that he cleaned and speed corrected the audio but did not alter the sound (or EQ I would guess) it.

The recording starts off pretty rough and distorted sounding.  But as is continues on, it starts sounding better.  I'd still give it a good-to-great (at times) sound rating depending on what part of the show I'm listening to.  The taper sounds like they may have been a distance from the stage.  And even though most of what Robert Plant says in between song can be made out, partially because of hearing him say it before in other shows, it isn't very clean. 

When the bass notes come back into play, the distortion does too in a song like "Heartbreaker" which is heavier.  But in a song like "Since I've Been Loving You", the song doesn't sound as distorted with that type of bass being played.

So far, I've been talking about the source 2, primary recording used.  But the source 1, patch material is not distorted even though it still sounds distant.  Both recording sources sound a little muffled but that may just be the old tapes being oxidized over their previous decades of storage too?  I really don't know.

Personally, I like the patch material (source 1) recording better because it is not distorted and is cleaner sounding.  And Plant's voice as well as Page's guitar and the rest of the band are more easily heard.  The more I listen to the source 1 part of the recording, the more I think that taper was possibly closer to the stage than the source 2 taper.  But once again, I really don't know.

During quieter music, without a lot of bass, source 2 sounds better to me.  But when there is heavy bass, like in "Dazed and Confused", the source 1 recording sounds better.  So it's a constant battle as to which source sounds better (to me anyhow) and it is always dependent on the song  (or more precisely the part of the song) that is being played.

I'm not even going to try and explain the mixed TLH CDDA Test text file I created (to check for lossiness) other than to say "dadgad" is fully capable and knows what he is doing with audio and I am sure he checked for lossiness.  I'm not concerned about it being lossy and especially since TLH is what I'd be basing my wondering on.  These recordings came from the copies of the tape that has been around for 40 years and that's way, way, way before lossy material was ever around also.

It's really hard to guess at what makes this source sound this way and that one sound that way.  And I could be totally wrong in any assumptions I make too.  But I do know what sounds better to me.  And the source 1 recording sounds better to me.  And that may be the consensus too for most listeners, or they may disagree?

This is a great job done by "dadgad" to showcase what is available from a low generation copy of the source 2 material and also use the source 1 material as a patching source.  And it is an enjoyable show to listen to and sit and critique on this very cold day 40 years later too!

I hope you enjoy this 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!!!