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The Complete Plantations for May 17, 1975
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John Paul Jones: View
John Bonham: View
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Over the Hills and Far Away
Good evening. I said good evening. You woudln't believe that after all the trouble and, and messing about to try and get this un earthly monster with us, the first thing that gets blown, right? And all it is, is a six penny jack plug. anyway, it's, I should say that it's our pleasure to be playing to so many people in England at one time. It's great. We couldn't make, hang on a tic, we couldn't make Nottingham Boat Club this time, but we managed to get here. what we intend to do is, what we just had a great time doing in America after eighteen months of laying about, we suddenly decided we were much better working together rather than sitting home pretending that we'd done it all, you know? So we got together and we found that it was really still getting better. ah What we intend to do tonight is to give you a little bit of everything that we've been able to do.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Over the Hills and Far Away
A crossection, you might say. So this is for you. This is how it starts.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: In My Time of Dying
This concert includes stuff from the beginning and stuff from, from now, and if I can remember it. Sometimes things slip my mind. This is an old, what you might call, a standard, in a loose sense of the term. It's an old chain gang thing, and as we're about a foot away from the chain gang with our dear Dennis Healy, we better dedicate this to Dennis. It's called In My Time of Dying.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: The Song Remains the Same
Well as you can see, it's still lemon and honey, and it's still the double neck guitar. In fact, there are a lot of things that ah, don't change about us, and there're some things that do. After all of the experiences that we've ah, the changes and what not, there's a lot of changes, but always The Song Remains the Same.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Kashmir
Well so far, not too bad. You can't believe the nerves that you get when you play, you just actually, it''s not even worth telling you about, but this I will say. In reply to the rumors in one of the dame, very famous musical papers that was printed in February 1973 about us breaking up, I got to tell you, it's not true. So two years later we um, we managed to get this epic, when I say epic, it's not in the egotistical sense of the word. we got Swan Song together, and then Physical Grafitti sort of rose from the, now don't get too excited. This is one of the tracks from it that we um, I supposed vibed in on, on trips to Bradford and things like that, the inspiration came. It's called Kashmir.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: No Quarter
Yeah that didn't really, Bradford wasn't that much of an inspiration for that song, in fact, we seem to find that, turn of events, travelling, experiences, and all these things lead you to different levels of conscienceness, and without turning into a Neil Young over night um, we try to relate to some of the changes. From west Bromich to Bombay, it's a long was. This is one song that attempts to do this. It features John Paul Jones, master of keyboards. Spotlight on John Paul Jones. This is called No Quarter.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Tangerine
John Paul Jones piano. Well ah, there's a lot of blurb about ah, the American show, but without ah, Blight Comrie, and ah, with out the beautiful wasted lands of Wales, and we couldn't, a lot of the music that came out of that small derilect cottage somewhere. There's a lot to be said for the west of the border, and we're gonna ah, cut into the program that we haven't been doing for a little, and bring in some of the stuff that we used to do years ago. This is one small step for you ears, but a giant step for our confidence because we haven't played it for years, and years. So we'll, as John Cleese says, we'll give it a whirl. This is a song of first love. It's called Tangerine.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Going to California
As we go one we all become looser, both you and us. This is the first time, that's the first time that there has ever been such a thing as four part harmony on stage with LEd Zeppelin. Nice one. Today Zeppelin, tomorrow the Hollies. Anybody who's followed our career ah, remembers that there was times, or there have been times in the past where we sat down. You attention please. It's just like a Grateful Dead set. Right, this is a song that ah, I was talking about people knowing, shut up a bit, give us a kiss um, as abstract as that might sound, it's a good introduction for Going to California.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: That's the Way
ah You're making it very hard for us to reach the proper tuning.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Good evening. You'll never believe that um, when I return to the shores of Albion um, the man who once played with Jet HArris and Tony Meehan, the man in white. Yeah, it's really good to be back in the healthy land of the Celts, the only trouble is well, you don't seem really glad to see us. In our attempts to, to diversify and beat the clock, and do all those silly sketches, we're going back into material that we really dig, but the trouble is, do you mind? ah Some of the lyrics have been written four or five years ago, and I've forgotten them. So I've got a piece of paper here so I can remember them. This is about a blue eyed dog.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Trampled Underfoot
ah A long time ago, I don't want to spiel too much, but I just really um, without using too many Americanisms, it's good vibes isn't it? You know? Can you feel it? ah A long time ago, there was a great ah, guy called Robert Johnson, who ah, brought music a long long long long was beyond anybody before him, and used to do a track called Terraplane Blues, which has, but Terraplane Blues is a song which relates to love, and also to the car. Trampled Underfoot.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Moby Dick
Rather early on in my childhood I had a friend who was a born thief, and he joined the group I was in, and ran it, and payed everyone else wages, and kept running it himself. He's a man of character, of good karma, a man, Mr. Vibes extraordinare. Our precussionist, John Bonham. Moby Dick.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Dazed and Confused
Let's hear it for John Bonham. John Bonham. John Bonham. John Bonham. John Bonham. So in 1968, that was before feedback, we got together in a tiny room. You all know the story well. Three wise men followed a star and we got together in a small room, and we ran through some, some, a total of about five numbers which we proceded to record. This is the first thing that we ever played together, and at the end of the first attempt at playing it, we realized that, despite the effort of the Melody Maker to break us up, we shall carry on forever.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Stairway to Heaven
Lead guitar Jimmy Page. Our standard of musicianship is very high, but Mr. Jones's orchestra refuses to be intune every night of every tour. This is a song that came to us in a moment of great ah, well, you remember lifting your hearts every morning at ten to eight on the radio. Well we had one of those that passed by at night, and we wrote a song like this.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
Before: Whole Lotta Love
Thank you very much. We had a really good time tonight and we want to say good night England. Thank you very much. It's been a great one. Good evening. Sorry about the delay, but we had to have a cup of tea.
May 17, 1975
Setpage: View
Venue: Earls Court Arena
City: London
Speaker: Robert Plant
After: Black Dog
It's been a long time, yeah? Well thank you very much for making it a great evening. Earls Court at last makes it. Thank you.