With the release of Finger Flu, TCOLZ present a newly surfaced alternate audience source for Zeppelin's first of three nights at Chicago Stadium. The title refers to Jimmy Page's broken finger and Robert Plant suffering from the flu. This alternate tape source is an important release in the fact that it clears up some speculation about the song order and exactly what songs come from the first night. Previous releases of the original audience source were said to come from a mix of the 20th and 21st. Now with Finger Flu, it is clear that "How Many More Times" does not come from this night.
This new source from TCOLZ is a good to very good audience source that lacks in low end but does capture a good amount of detail. This show is most notable for the inclusion of "When The Levee Breaks" and "The Wanton Song", two songs that unfortunately would not last in the set. It's really a shame as they are decent versions that only would have gotten better as the tour progressed.
This is the second date from the American tour and the band is in fairly rough shape and is still chipping the rust off in spots. In the first half of the show Plant's flu is very evident but surprisingly Page pulls off the broken finger technique without a hitch. One might never know by listening to him solo in "Rock And Roll" and "Sick Again". Page comes out of the solo wrong in "Over The Hills And Far Away" but Bonham and Jones adjust without a problem. The first rarity of the night comes with "When The Levee Breaks" which may be Zeppelin's final live performance of the track. Jimmy extends the end and sounds like something he could have expanded further on in the future if it hadn't been dropped so quickly. After a workout in "The Song Remains The Same", "The Rain Song" allows Plant to relax a bit more, not having to push his vocals to the limit.
The first musical cut comes at
4:12 in "
Kashmir" and is followed by the second rarity of the night, "The Wanton Song". From here on out the band seems to improve delivering some of the better performances of the night. The flu must be getting to Robert's head where he mistakenly introduces "No Quarter" as "a track from the fourth album". This reaches about 13 minutes tonight and will be extended as the tour rolls on. "Moby Dick" is cut at 0:57 and again at
2:16 missing most of the drum solo and is only four and a half minutes in this recording. "In My Time Of Dying" follows and was not played in the early part of the show as was previously speculated. This is one of the better played tracks from the night and Plant doesn't sound so bad in this version. "Stairway To Heaven" has a very small cut at 0:24 and a near disaster is avoided about a minute and a half in, in what sounds like confusion about where they are in the song.
Plant mentions
Chicago after "Stairway" confirming the location and apologizes for the flu again (he mentions this several times throughout the night). "Whole Lotta Love" is only a minute in length and acts as a lead in for "Black Dog", which unfortunately misses the last few seconds. "Communication Breakdown" has a nice break during the solo where Jimmy plays a few riffs by himself and is a nice closing to a somewhat shaky show. The tape ends abruptly at the finish of "Communication Breakdown" omitting any audience cheer.
While listening to the older source, Live At The Chicago Stadium, a pro-cdr from the Cobra label, Cobra's "Rock And Roll" appears to be a two source mix. The first half is very distant with lots of echo that cuts to the normal source just before Page's solo. I compared this to Finger Flu and found the first half to be from a different night. After the change the performances match. The sound quality for the first half of "Rock And Roll" from Cobra is very similar to "How Many More Times" so both of these could possibly be from the following night. But until the 21st surfaces, we can only speculate.
Despite the physical shape of the band they still pull off a pretty decent show and although the tape isn't as full sounding as the older source, Finger Flu gives us a better representation of the show and is a really good listen. This is packaged in a double slimline jewel case and is the first TCOLZ title to have artwork as opposed to the brown paper bag look of the earlier titles. The front cover has a great picture of Page while the back cover shows Jimmy and Robert (and Jones) in action.
