July 27, 1973
New York, NY US
Madison Square Garden
Setlist:
Rock and Roll, Celebration Day, (Bring It On Home intro) Black Dog, Over the Hills and Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, Rain Song, Dazed and Confused (incl. San Francisco), Stairway to Heaven, Moby Dick, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Let That Boy Boogie), The Ocean.
Notes:
The gigs at MSG are filmed and recorded for the group's feature movie, The Song Remains the Same, and accompanying soundtrack album, as well as the 2003 dvd. A remastered edition of the film & soundtrack are released in November 2007.
Review: Led Zeppelin Rocks to a Close at Garden
I saw the Friday opening of the Led Zeppelin concert from backstage, feeling the weight and response of the packed Madison Square Garden. It was possibly the best place to test the power of the British rock group, making the final dates of its current and very successful American tour.
And power it is – Led Zeppelin provides a kind of tent-show hard rock revivalism, healing and providing succor to the faithful, on a stage that throughout the evening became cluttered with smoke, dry-ice fumes and that most privileged of rock ‘n’ roll people, the film-maker.
Led Zeppelin remains unchanged. The group may perform different pieces, but the effect is the same. Jimmy Page’s lead guitar still dominates and mixes and merges with Robert Plant’s agile voice and Nureyev pirouetting to provide the basic essence of Zeppelin.
And Page is still into musical freakiness; dramatically dragging a violin bow across his guitar, he did his familiar squealing impersonation before boogieing off.
Page’s guitar more often than not sounds like thunder, but for all the power and fury at their disposal, the stage had much scaffolding on either side to hold the equipment, Zeppelin manages to provide some separation of instruments in the blare.
The group and the loyalty of its pilgrims out front (who remained shouting for an encore after the group had left) provide solidarity to hard rock. (NYTimes, July ’73)
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first concert I ever went to-what a shock!
This was the first concert I ever went to; I got the tickets through the mail. I had NO idea what to expect. I really thought that one of the local DJ's from WNEW or WPLJ was going to be introducing each song from the side of the stage. It wasn't so much that I was a dork (I DID recognize that funny smell) but I just had no idea what went on at a concert. When the house lights went down, everybody stood up and moved forward; the roar was unbelievable. It was met by a sound that seemed twice as loud-Rock and Roll. My spleen almost popped out of my ass. I thought "what a $%#ing disaster". But by the second number, Celebration Day, I got it. Really got it. Realized how each song was better live, that they were meant to be played live. Realized that how they played and leaped and pounded was not about dry technical accuracy, but how to create a groove and a mood. Something clicked for me in 1969 when a kid brought Led Zeppelin II in to school to play on the classroom record player. Until the nun confiscated the record, it was the most unbelievable thing I had ever heard. It clicked a little more one night two years later in Soho when my attention was drawn by the sound of Whole Lotta Love blasting through the doorway of a niteclub. In the entrance stood a girl grooving to the beat-yeah that all of a sudden made all kinds of sense. And two more years later in 1973 when I finally got to see these guys in person, after I got over the final shock, it all came together. See my pics for the 6/14/77 date-peace.