Page & Plant: 1998-02-26 Katowice, Silesia, Poland (FLAC_SB_2 CD)

This is an excellent soundboard recording of the Page and Plant concert from 17 years ago today.  This is a great show, one I've not heard in a long time but am listening to again right now, and it is also from what I consider to be the best Page and Plant tour too.

I've stated in the 1995/1996 posts I've made that I really did not like the strong Middle Eastern musical influence the band had on that tour.  I wanted to hear a much more Led Zeppelin sounding performance.  I still like and enjoy their shows from the first No Quarter tour in 1995/1996.  But their second go at it in their 1998 tour was much more Led Zeppelin sounding and songs like "No Quarter" sounded like what I'd almost expect Led Zeppelin to sound like had they continued on even after John Bonham's death in 1980.

This show was being performed before the new Page and Plant album, Walking Into Clarksdale, had been released.  Robert Plant even mentions this before they play the self titled song "Walking Into Clarksdale" too.  It seemed Led Zeppelin was always touring before their LP's were released and it looks like Page and Plant were following that old habit.

LINEAGE:
No lineage given > 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: Page & Plant
Date: February 26th, 1998
Location: Katowice, Silesia, Poland
Venue: Spodek Hall
Title: Going To Katowice
Label: DoubleLiveDiscs (possibly)
Source: SB
Format: FLAC
CD's: 2
Artwork: Yes
Size: 665 MB
Length: 104:34:71

SETLIST:
CD 1:
101. The Wanton Song
102. Bring It On Home
103. Heartbreaker
104. Ramble On
105. Walking Into Clarksdale
106. No Quarter
107. Going To California
108. Tangerine
109. Gallows Pole
110. Burning Up

CD 2:
201. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
202. How Many More Times
203. Most High
204. Whole Lotta Love
205. Thank You
206. Rock And Roll 

LINK:
(1) 1998-02-26 Katowice, Poland (SB)

This is an excellent sounding show as well as an excellent performance.  There are some parts in the show that make me wonder if this may be just a superb audience recording and not a soundboard.  It sounds like a soundboard but a few times I hear some close clapping in between songs.  But since it is circulated as a soundboard, and I am sure someone would have determined if it wasn't by now, I believe it most likely is one.

I really wish John Paul Jones had been with Page and Plant and that they had used the late Michael Lee, their drummer for both Page & Plant tours, and had made their first, full concert Led Zeppelin reunion show.  This would have been the prime time to have done so and then they could have carried on with some Led Zeppelin shows in a world tour too.

Jason Bonham, who has done a great job in the reunions he has been a part of as he carried on his father John Bonham's legacy, might have worked too.  But I personally think he wasn't really up to par at this point and he was going through some troubles of his own back them.

When I met Jason Bonham and sat and talked to him alone as we each had a beer in 1999, he was doing the In The Name of My Father tour.  The band he had together played Led Zeppelin songs.  And they sounded great too.  He was a super nice guy and even signed my ticket stub to the show he and his band played that night with the symbolic John Bonham three circles logo on it too.  But without going into any details, he was battling some problems of his own back then.  And this was just a year after the Page and Plant 1998 tour too.  He was not in the best place to be filling in as the drummer for the guys and they may have known this?  And thankfully, Jason got himself together and carried on in the later years and did a great job when Led Zeppelin did reform for their 2007 one show only reunion.  I was glad to see them using him and having the (most likely) final Led Zeppelin show ever performed being one that was kept within the Led Zeppelin family.

Getting back on track for this seventeen year old show as of today, the band puts on a great show but I have heard them put on much better shows too.  This was their very first time playing in Katowice and just their fourth show of the new tour too.  I'm sure they were still getting warmed up and getting settled into the tour.  Plant's voice sounds a little untested but he still sounds fine and great.  Even Jimmy Page sounds like he is a little "careful" and not  as ad-lib playing or making it up as he went along as he later sounded as he got back in the swing of things.  But there is absolutely nothing wrong with the show.  They just seemed to have gotten a little better as the tour progressed I think.  And I know the crowd left the venue on this night and they were not disappointed either.

I hope you enjoy this show...

Bootradr

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