Robert Plant 1988-05-15 Hartford, CT 2xDVD5

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This topic has 2 voices, contains 2 replies, and was last updated by  guitard 2929 days ago.

April 17, 2016 at 10:16 pm Quote #53109

guitard
(7354)

This is up at both Dime and TDD. If anyone would like Dropbox links, just send me a PM.

Robert Plant
Civic Center
Hartford, CT
May 15, 1988

CBG Classic Master Video Series Vol.35

video: (CBG) Ricoh R-600 (same specs as Sony CCD-V5) 8mm camcorder (w/ 2X teleconverter lens) master 8mm analog tape; NTSC, 4:3 PAR, 29.97 fps; transferred to harddrive via a firewire using a Sony TRV-330 8mm digital camera w/ Time Base Correction; video capture, editing, and 2-pass VBR encoding done with Sony Vegas Pro 13 at 6.6K max, 6.5K avg, 1K min; authored to DVD in Sony DVD Architect Pro 6.

audio: (Audio 2) recorded w/ Aiwa-CM30A mic through the Ricoh R-600′s external mic in jack; captured with the video from the master 8mm analog tape; LPCM 1536 bit.

Alternate audio (Audio 1) recorded by CBG using another Aiwa CM-30A mic to a WM-D6C. Missing first two tracks. Audio remastered by DigitalDan.

All video editing and DVD authoring by Silver Stallion (guitard on Dime).

running time 1hr 46mins (full show)

disc 1 (49 mins)
1. Helen Of Troy *
2. Other Arms *
3. Heaven Knows
4. In The Evening
5. In The Mood
6. Black Country Woman
7. Ship Of Fools
8. Little By Little

disc 2 (57 mins)
1. Dimples
2. Trampled Under Foot
3. Billy’s Revenge
4. Misty Mountain Hop
5. Tall Cool One
6. Big Log
7. Break On Through

* No alternate audio from WM-D6C

Robert Plant – vocals
Charlie Jones – bass
Chris Blackwell – drums
Phil Johnstone – keys
Doug Boyle – guitar

I only have one request, that you don’t take these files and post them on other torrent sites. I have many shows to upload. I will upload, let them get seeded by others and after a majority have downloaded the files completely, remove my files so I can seed something new. I prefer to manage my own shows on DIME and The Traders Den. I will upload to other sites when I wish to for select shows. Thanks for honoring my wishes in advance.

This is “CBG Classic Master Video Series Vol.35”.

So last night (back in 1988), I was at a marathon show. It started at 1pm in the afternoon at Madison Square Garden. I had woke up at like 6am to get ready and drive 2 hours to NYC, get some food and then drive into Manhattan to meet up with a friend to get my tickets to the show. We go from 1pm to 7pm with bands on and off stage all day. Then a 1 hour break. HBO picks up the coverage at 8pm and broadcasts live from that point on. The heavy hitters come out now…Robert Plant’s new band, Genesis, where I almost get caught filming, then into May 15th we go as we cross midnight. The final act is what everyone was waiting for. LED ZEPPELIN !

I was in Quebec City and Montreal for the first two nights of the Robert Plant tour back on May 5th and May 7th. And with Robert playing Zeppelin tunes for the first time, I was really in Zeppelin mode by this point. Led Zeppelin takes the stage at MSG at 1am on May 15th now and plays for just over a half hour to 1:30am. What a day! Well, it wasn’t over. Now we had to walk to the parking lot and drive 2 hours home. It was all worth it! I just filmed Led Zeppelin in the World’s Most Famous Arena Madison Square Garden. Kashmir, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love, Misty Mountain Hop and the greatest rock song of all time….Stairway to Heaven. Whew, I was exhausted being up almost 24 hours straight and being on an adrenaline high for a lot of the day and especially for that half hour as LED played and for some time afterwards knowing I got it. Even though HBO got it and my friend recorded that broadcast for me, I got it myself. That meant more to me. Turns out, I was the only fan in there that filmed that. When we got home around 4am, I passed out in bed.

Now, with Zep in the bag last night, the Robert Plant tour was going to kick off in the United States today. It was opening night in Hartford, CT on a Sunday. And I had a ticket. Now, after the 2 and a half hour drive across into Connecticut, and charging the batteries over night, I would be trying to sneak that camcorder from the Hartford mall into the Civic Center for the show. I honestly don’t remember much about this show. I don’t think I ever played the tape after I recorded it. I also snuck in the Sony Walkman D6C audio recorder in my pants along with all of the camcorder stuff on my back. The Walkman D6C is the size of a VHS tape. I think this was the first time I tried to audio tape and video tape at the same time. It would later become standard for all the shows where I thought I could get both in or where I really wanted an audio for my car to listen to. I never thought in the future, 25 years after the show, I would be using the analog cassette audios from the WM-D6C to synch to the video as an alternate audio source!

So, here it is, almost coming up on 9pm and the start of the show. It was a long day after that marathon show the day before. I was able to get the whole Robert Plant show and it is now 11pm. I think this is the only time ever that I did something like this. I filmed Robert from 1:00am – 1:30 am in the morning on May 15th in Madison Square Garden performing with Led Zeppelin and then I filmed Robert from 9:00pm – 11:00pm ‘In The Evening’ on May 15th. So I filmed Robert Plant twice in the same day! I don’t think that will ever happen again in my life or again period for any band of that magnitude. It was such an odd occurrence. This was the first time I ever filmed in the Hartford Civic Center. The good thing was, after this show, there was no 2 hour drive home. I was living in Connecticut at the time and it was only a 45 min drive to the shore of Connecticut after this show. Mission accomplished. Now I could relax and enjoy my labors. Right?! This is where those tapes went into a box and I was on to another show the next night. And then then next night, and then two nights later after that. I was playing that cassette of the Led Zeppelin show from MSG and the song Kashmir before each show now…”I am the traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been”. It became my mantra and my inspiration to get psyched up for the next show and to sneak my equipment in and do the shows. There were many possibilities now and a whole lot of my favorite artists coming around. I felt like if I didn’t go, it wouldn’t get done. So I went to as many as I could because now I thought I could film anywhere. In any arena. I would find a way to get it. To me that was the hardest part. Once I was through the door, I never sat in my seat, I would just go to where I thought it would be best to be. On this weekend, it was best to be there to try and get the shows. My one and only time filming Led Zeppelin. Then getting the opportunity to film Robert twice in one day. To be where I have been, it was a lot of fun and all worth it. And at this point, it changed my attitude about everything to go for it! Why not?! Enjoy opening night of the Robert Plant tour in the United States at the Hartford Civic Center! CBG5150.


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April 18, 2016 at 9:23 am Quote #53110

wjamflan
(1089)

I saw the show 5 days later at Great Woods (5/20/88) in Mansfield, MA with 2 of my best friends from high school. One had just moved to MA from Dallas, TX a couple of years before, and was a huge Stevie Ray Vaughan fan because of his dad. I had started playing guitar about a year and a half before that, so I was aware of SRV but had never seen him. My friend was adamant that we HAD to go see Stevie open for Plant because then we would know what all of the fuss was about. But it didn’t take much prodding for me because I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan, and Robert had just released Tall Cool One to radio with all of it’s LZ references. I was stoked to go see him.

If memory serves, it was a cool, gray, overcast, Friday night when we took our spot in the center of the old lawn (when it was all lawn) at Great Woods. SRV came out on fire, and my friend looked at the other two of us as if to say, “see, I told you so!”. I thought he was good, but not overwhelmingly good. Then, just before the end of his set, he launched into Life Without You. It was much slower and quieter than all of the other songs he played, but all of the sudden, I had goosebumps. It was like being struck by lightening; it was so good. At that time, I was only 18 years old and didn’t drink, so there was nothing clouding my judgement – this was a religious-like experience. I stood there, dumbfounded, taking it in. That was the moment I became a big SRV fan. He finished off the set by killing it on Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). When Stevie was done, the three of us didn’t say a thing; we just smiled. What a performance!

After Stevie’s set, people started filing in and I didn’t know what to expect. Would Plant be able to top what I had just seen SRV do? I have to say that I wasn’t sure, because even though I was a diehard Zep fan, Plant had spent most of the 80′s (to that point) making quintessential 80′s type music. The problem for me was that it didn’t sound anything like Led Zeppelin; it sounded more like eclectic night on Miami Vice – Big Log playing on an MTV loop in my head – I just didn’t care for it.

I believe it was still light out when Plant and his band came on. They started with Helen of Troy, which was a song with a riff from his latest album, Now and Zen. People went nuts, but as the song progressed, I felt a little let down. It was good, but not magic. Other Arms followed, and for me, the same feeling – it was just ok. Heaven Knows was next and I started thinking, “what kind of fool am I?” applied to me – the performance was good but nothing spectacular. Then it happened. The stage got dark, and there was a long quasi-familiar droning intro. In those days, we had no idea of what the setlist was going to look like, so everything was a surprise. But when Plant sang the words… “In The Eeeeeve-ning”… the place lost it. It was one of the most electric concert moments I have ever experienced. The best part was that we had no idea it was coming. We thought we’d be happy with the tongue-in-cheek Zep scraps in Tall Cool One, but this was a total shock. Plant had spent the better part of the decade downplaying Zep and his role in the band, as well as refusing to play those tunes, so we never expected actual songs from the catalog. People sang along in a way they didn’t for his previous songs – passionately. Suddenly, we were all in the mood for a melody, and that song didn’t sound so boring. Then he did it again. Black Country Woman whipped the place into an absolute frenzy. By the time he destroyed the shed with Misty Mountain Hop and Tall Cool One, it was clear that Plant had found a way to top what SRV had done.

Why am I writing all of this? Seeing Randy’s unexpected post for the Hartford show made me think back to that night almost 30 years ago, and it’s a bittersweet memory. Obviously the show itself was one to remember, but it kind of reminds me of what we have lost in this age of total connected-ness – the element of surprise at concerts. I know some people refuse to read the forum and watch youtube before going to shows, but that is so hard, especially with today’s concert prices. My two friends and I went to that Plant/SRV show for less than $100 – combined. Last summer, I spent over $1000 to see VH with my family. I HAD to watch clips beforehand to decide whether it would even be worth it, especially after the 2012 tour with Dave’s vocal issues. In the end, I made a business decision. I enjoyed the show, but there were no surprises. In much the same way, I don’t know if people downloading this Plant show will be able to appreciate how incredible it was to see live, especially now after the multiple Page and Plant tours, the Zep DVD set, etc.

In the end, I’m sure that many of the people who were in Hartford that day had a similar experience to mine. Is it really that great today? To reference the 80′s in a different way, maybe my experience at that show was like getting Eddie Murphy’s cracker when I was starving and thinking it was a Ritz; now I would think it was just a plain old cracker. Honestly, I don’t want to know, so I won’t be requesting it. But thank you Randy for working hard to preserve those memories and share them with everyone.


“This hamburger don’t need no helper.” – DLR 5/17/15


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April 18, 2016 at 10:25 am Quote #53118

guitard
(7354)

CBG filmed a lot of Robert Plant shows back in the day, to include shows at Great Woods. Unfortunately, however, he didn’t film the ’88 Great Woods show.


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