I’m sure those more embedded in the bootleg game would have avoided my pitfall, but as it turns out not only did my pursuit and purchase of Physical Presence, a gray market live set capturing three FM broadcasts from 1973, 1975, and 1977 from the mighty Led Zeppelin, yield a few (we’ll get to it) great performances I wasn’t aware of, but also got my caveman brain to finally grasp a basic tenet of the bootleg game—since it’s a bootleg, ANYONE can sell it: slap a fresh photograph and some cool fonts—no AI required!—you got yourself something some dummy will buy, not realizing they already owned it, and a better recording of it, to boot.
Not naming names, but uh…yeah. Let’s talk about Physical Presence.
That YouTube embed above? Another example of the same exact show, which is the insanely good and well-recorded Mobile, AL show from May 13th, 1973. The band were coming in on the back of Houses of the Holy, an underrated classic, acting as that thread connecting the swaggering rhythm and blues rock of their “classic” period to the burgeoning progressive epic of Physical Graffiti. The whole band sounds alive and connected—when you get to joke about John Paul Jones but then let him absolutely shred on “No Quarter”? That’s a band that knows just how integral each is to the spark powering their sound. Every song is towering, but I’d be lying if I didn’t pick the searing “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and the sliding funky jam of “Celebration Day” off Led Zeppelin III.
Except…wait. Double-checking the sequencing, the band opens with “Rock and Roll” and then jumps into “Black Dog” before going to the new stuff. So why am I so sure “Celebration Day” should be there?
Because I’m now realizing this is literally the “FM broadcasts”—the cut-down final products, whatever was played later after the live show. The full show having “Celebration Day” as well as the band’s notorious 30-minute “Dazed and Confused.” Which I know because one of my favorite bootlegs is this one, “remastered” (whatever that means), but having the full show and all the banter added back in. Great show, sounds amazing…really didn’t need an abbreviated version, but now I’ve learned one more thing about this culture, and I’m the wiser for it.
Also happier for it, because it certainly doesn’t hurt that there are two additional broadcasts, each inadvertently documenting the tolls of fame and excess over a few short years. The 1975 show in Earls Court, London has the muddy, slightly bombastic echo of a band lost in a venue they haven’t figured out yet. But the chance to hear songs like “In My Time of Dying” and “Trampled Under Foot” in a live setting, knowing Page didn’t give much of a damn about sticking to the album arrangements, is too much of a rarity for me to pass by.
Seriously, why have a band that sounds this good live be so stingy with official live releases?
An EP? Really?
1977’s broadcast from the Richfield Coliseum in Ohio sounds even more distant and tinny, but goddamn that setlist might be the reason why I grabbed this. Accidents, regrouping, Presence…it still remains the biggest gray area in terms of albums for me, so hearing a setlist so heavily focused on it and Physical Graffiti, instead of all those classics from the first four records, felt essential, regardless of the sound quality or Robert Plant’s subdued performance. Open your show with the triple kick of “Sick Again,” “Ten Years Gone,” and “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”?
Yes, please. Sonics be damned.
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