Originally Posted by
Terry
The Cleveland '77 show was - I think - the one that has been traded for decades as the 'Destroyer' Zep show...yeah, THAT one WAS pretty solid far as that tour went, performance-wise.
The lengthy piano/guitar/drum solos on the '77 tour just bloated those shows and killed momentum. Has to be, what, perhaps 45 minutes of solo bloat that could have been either jettisoned or severely pared down and let the shows run for a little over 2 hours instead of closer to 3.
The band were smart on the 1980 Europe tour cutting that stuff down the minimal lengths. If a band can't get it done in 120 minutes, another 60 on top of it usually isn't helpful. About the only show I've seen that clocked in close to 3 hours and remained fairly effective was the Stones in 1989, and that also had the massive stadium production, fireworks at the end and a set list chock full of iconic Stones songs...and even THEN I think the show could have stood to have dropped maybe 3 or 4 lesser tunes that didn't stand up against the others (unless one considers Dirty Work's Harlem Shuffle and the Steel Wheels material to be right up there alongside Sympathy For The Devil).
But, yeah, that 1980 Zurich show demonstrated the band in energetic form, one song after another in fairly brisk fashion: listening to Trampled Underfoot and Achilles Last Stand from that gig, the band were still able at that late date to focus and deliver powerful stuff when they applied themselves.