Led Zeppelin - The Forum, Inglewood, CA - June 23rd 1977 (Mike Millard "Unmarked" Audience Recording)

Artist: Led Zeppelin
Date: 1977-06-23
Location: Inglewood, CA
Venue: The Forum
Source: Audience
Lineage: 1st gen cassettes(TDK SA 90)x3>Nakamichi 670 pitch & azimuth-adjusted playback deck>Nakamichi Outboard Dolby B Unit>Wavelab 96/24>Izotope 44.1/16>flac
Taping Gear: AKG mics, Nakamichi 550 cassette deck
Taped By: Mike Millard
Transferred By: JEMS


Setlist:
01. Since I've Been Loving You
02. No Quarter
03. Ten Years Gone
04. The Battle Of Evermore
05. Going To California
06. Black Country Woman
07. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
08. White Summer
09. Kashmir
10. Trampled Underfoot
11. Over The Top
12. Noise Solo
13. Achilles Last Stand
14. Stairway To Heaven
15. Whole Lotta Love
16. Rock And Roll

Length: 165:48

Notes:
UNcirculated set of unmarked tapes for this show transferred with Dolby B on as per Mike's notes on the tape labels using an adjustable outboard Dolby B unit. This is the 1st time (May 2010) these tapes have ever been digitized. The sound is completely unaltered except for pitch correction during playback. There are many dropouts in the recording due to Millard having problems with his tape deck. He also missed the first four songs due to having the pause button pressed in while recording. As it turns out there is has been an unmarked copy of this recording circulating for many years now on the Badgeholders (Balboa) label that no one has noticed except for the astute observations of Blackmikito. To paraphrase his analysis he did the a/b comparison of Balboa with other versions and discovered outside of the common dropouts in both channels from recorder problems Balboa is the only one without single channel manipulation issues. This low gen confirms his conclusion. Also of note is the tone you hear during the first dropout's during Since I've Been Loving You is actually a test tone. Here is some more of Blackmikito's research and conclusions on this.

"One significant piece of info that I can pass on to you that most people don't know is that Millard was likely having issues with the Nak on this night. This is why there are so many cuts and drops on the recording. Originally I had always thought that the drops and beeping noise in SIBLY were marks. But, a few years ago I did a little research and found out that the Nakamichi 550 has a 400hz "test tone" switch on the back of the deck: http://www.angelfire.com/wi/blueswapper/nak550d.html

Pushing that switch will cut-off your recording and insert the test tone. This is used so that you can match what you recorded on the Nak against the test tone on another deck. (Hence the phrase "Tones on Tail" - a studio note to let other engineers know that the test tone is on the tail of the reel of tape). It is this test tone switch on the Nak 550 which I believe caused all of the drops on the 6/23/77 recording. Go to this site: http://www.testsounds.com/ and listen to the sample for the 400hz test-tone. Now compare that one to the test tone that you can hear during "Since I've Been Loving You". The two tones match.

This error correlates with something that I had learned from a friend of Mike's who I went back and forth with a few years ago via email. When I brought up the errors on 6/23/77 to him, he said that he didn't attend that show with Mike, but that he believed that that show must've been one of the ones that Mike had told him about, where he ruined a recording by standing his deck up in the bag that he had it hidden in, and inadvertently activated the test-tone button. This happened to him a few times, so Mike later came up with a homemade plastic cover which he attached to the back of the deck so that it wouldn't happen anymore."

With all that said is this an upgrade to the Balboa release? The answer is yes, since Balboa used a higher gen analog copy(an eq'd 2nd gen). Also the root 1st gen for that release is not this tape.

Conclusion like it or not this is a clean unaltered transfer of Mike's recording that sounds as his master(which was recorded with Dolby B on) would with the transfer work and digitization done correctly and faithfully as possible to the masters.

Mike Millard, nicknamed "Mike The Mike" was an avid concert taper in the 1970s and 1980s, recording mostly Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones concerts in California, especially at the Los Angeles Forum. He taped virtually every show at the Forum from 1974 to 1980. Many of his recordings found their way into the hands of bootleggers who sold Millard's work to fans.

Starting with a basic mono recorder in 1974, Millard upgraded to a Nakamichi stereo recorder with AKG Acoustics microphones for the 1975 Led Zeppelin shows in the area. He often used a wheelchair to conceal his equipment, pretending to be disabled. Unlike most 1970s audience bootlegs, Millard's recordings are noted for their great sound quality, and are to this day considered some of the finest audio bootlegs available.

Millard's recording of the Led Zeppelin concert on June 21, 1977 at the Forum (allegedly taped from row number six) was released under the title Listen To This Eddie, and remains one of the best-known Led Zeppelin bootlegs. His recording of the opening number from the concert, "The Song Remains The Same", was included in the promos menu of the Led Zeppelin DVD. Millard recorded all of the Rolling Stones 1975 shows at the LA Forum, and his recording of the Sunday, June 13, 1975 show (titled 'LA Friday') has become one of the most widely spread recordings of a Rolling Stones concert.

Millard was never behind the sale of bootlegs and was openly against the illegal sale of his recordings - like many audience tapers today.

Millard allegedly suffered from severe depression, and committed suicide in 1990.