We're Playing Our Balls Out covers Led Zeppelin's third and final night at The Forum in March 1975 and is also the final night of their American tour. This is one of the longest nights from the tour and clocks in at over three and a half hours. The Chronicles Of Led Zeppelin assembled both known recordings from this show in a comprehensive 6CD set. There is no mixing of sources and both are featured in their original form.
While I won't get into every previous release of this show on CD, a few worth noting are Get Back To LA, a 9CD set containing all three nights from LA on Tarantura, Remainz on Akashic, and Final Show In The Forum 1975 on Jelly Roll. Deep Throat was also a massive 9CD box set from
Empress
Valley once again collecting all three shows in LA and also contained a DVD of amateur footage. Final Night In The Forum 1975 from Power Archives is the only title to utilized the inferior second source to fill some gaps but the title had its share of problems as well. Jelly Roll seemed to be the best alternative to the expensive and very rare
Empress
Valley set and is what I had for comparison. Jelly Roll's version is brighter with a slightly louder level and definitely sounds more enhanced than TCOLZ which is a bit softer to the ears. They both sound great so it would come down to personal preference but I did find Jelly Roll to be a slight bit harsher on top.
Source one features the famous Mike Millard recording in excellent stereo capturing the event vividly. All instruments are clear in the mix and the source used here is very natural sounding. Led Zeppelin is introduced by Linda Lovelace tonight, star of the porn classic Deep Throat. Plant battles his way through "Rock And Roll" before a solid version of "Sick Again" with good solos from Page at the end. Jimmy delivers a very lengthy solo in "Over The Hills And Far Away" getting very experimental and even borders on wandering. It becomes evident at this point that he is out to extend this evenings performance every chance he gets and this will reach its peak later during "Dazed And Confused". "The Rain Song" has a silent gap between
4:10 and
4:23 and the label chose not to close the gap. Changes in the program have the band performing "Since I've Been Loving You" for only the third time during this tour and as a result get an inspired version.
In "No Quarter" John Paul Jones switches from electric to acoustic piano in his solo showpiece of the night. Jones plays some interesting piano under Jimmy's solo and the piece is stretched to a half hour this evening. There is a fade and silent gap at 24:01 that lasts until 24:07 with only a very short amount of time lost. "Trampled Underfoot" contains the "Gallows Pole" lyrics at the end and after Robert says "that was Trampled Under Gallows". "Moby Dick" is cut around
11:14 not missing much, if any time and from
16:18 to
16:25 is another silent gap.
"Dazed And Confused" reaches 45 minutes in length and has Plant singing "Loving You" during what would normally be the "
San Francisco" section and later plays around very effectively with delay. The recording picks up the echo in the venue nicely adding to an already great atmosphere. At 36:24 there is a quick fade in/out to handle the cut. This version of "Dazed" is definitely Zeppelin in its most free form. At
6:11 the right channel becomes weaker in "Stairway" just before another very loose Page solo. "Whole Lotta Love" includes "Lickin' Stick" before an insane Theremin battle with Plant. This is segued with "Black Dog" and the tape picks up the audience call and response well. "It's time to ramble on, good night" are Plant's final words from the American tour.
The second source included on discs 4, 5, and 6 is more distant, a bit muffled and has some distortion in places. It suffers at times from some tape speed problems where the tape drags. In addition to a few cuts between tracks, "No Quarter" has two cuts at
7:45 and 25:20. "Trampled Underfoot" is cut at
10:23 eliminating the end; "Moby Dick" is cut at
2:18,
11:32, and again at 25:46 also missing the end. "Dazed And Confused" has a few cuts at 33:41, 35:58 and again misses the last few seconds. TCOLZ is the first label to press this source to CD in its entirety.
I must admit even though it is great to have both sources (and I hope TCOLZ continue this practice) source one is the real gem here. We're Playing Our Balls Out comes packaged in a 6-way fatboy jewel case with the familiar brown paper bag artwork and contains an insert with some photos and a shot of the ticket stub. Despite the bland packaging, this is a nice welcomed addition to my ever growing Zeppelin collection.
