Led Zeppelin — Heavy MachineryLive at the Parc des Expositions, Nancy, FranceMarch 27, 1973
Description: Tales of the Sonic Voyage Presents
Led Zeppelin — Heavy Machinery
Live at the Parc des Expositions, Nancy, France
March 27, 1973
Tonight we’re heading to France for Led Zeppelin’s Heavy Machinery, an audience recording from their 1973 European tour. This is a different setting from the early American club shows or the outdoor Australian concerts: an exhibition hall in Nancy, with four musicians bringing an increasingly ambitious body of music to the stage.
Led Zeppelin formed in 1968 with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Within five years, they had moved from their blues foundations through the heavier second album, the broader directions of Led Zeppelin III and the extraordinary success of their fourth album. By March 1973, their concerts had to accommodate all of that history while making room for the next chapter.
The new material gives this recording much of its character. “The Song Remains the Same” and “The Rain Song” appear together, introducing two very different sides of the music that would become Houses of the Holy.
One moves with restless speed; the other takes its time, allowing the arrangement and Plant’s vocal to unfold gradually. Hearing them alongside the older songs helps place this concert at a particular moment in the band’s development.
John Paul Jones is especially important to that change. His work on bass and keyboards gives Zeppelin the ability to move between a hard-driving rock band and something with a much wider range of textures. The Mellotron brings another dimension to “The Rain Song,” while Page’s guitar supplies both the momentum and the detail.
Bonham holds those changes together without losing the force that makes this unmistakably Led Zeppelin.
The opening stretch gets straight to business. “Rock and Roll,” “Over the Hills and Far Away” and “Black Dog” lead into the pairing of “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” That transition takes us from the sharp, repeating keyboard figure of the first song into the slow blues of the second, where Plant and Page have room to answer each other.
Then there is “Dazed and Confused.” By this point, the song had become a place where Zeppelin could depart from the familiar arrangement and explore ideas that belonged specifically to the live performance.
The “San Francisco” passage is part of that journey here. It’s one of the reasons these recordings are worth returning to: knowing the studio song doesn’t tell you everything that will happen when the band plays it onstage.
“Stairway to Heaven” brings the concert back to a more recognizable shape before “Whole Lotta Love” opens the door again. Its medley draws on the blues and early rock and roll that helped bring these musicians together in the first place. Even as their own writing became more elaborate, those roots remained an active part of the show.
Heavy Machinery preserves the Nancy performance as an audience recording, so you’re hearing the band from within the hall, with the room and the crowd around them. There are small cuts in “The Rain Song,” and the recording does not preserve the encores. The tracks below represent the Nancy material included in this presentation.
For those following our recent Zeppelin shows, this one brings us forward to 1973: a band with an established catalogue, new music entering the programme and plenty of room left for the performance to take its own course.
Artists
Robert Plant — Lead vocals and harmonica
Jimmy Page — Electric guitars
John Paul Jones — Bass guitar, keyboards and Mellotron
John Bonham — Drums and percussion
Tracklist
1 — Rock and Roll
2 — Over the Hills and Far Away
3 — Black Dog
4 — Misty Mountain Hop
5 — Since I’ve Been Loving You
6 — The Song Remains the Same
7 — The Rain Song
8 — Dazed and Confused
9 — Stairway to Heaven
10 — Whole Lotta Love — Medley
All rights to the music and performances belong to their respective owners. If you enjoy what you hear, please support Led Zeppelin through their official releases.
Thank you for listening, watching, liking, sharing and subscribing to Tales of the Sonic Voyage. We appreciate everyone who spends part of their day or night here with us, and everyone who helps these performances reach another listener. Close description
Led Zeppelin — Heavy Machinery
Live at the Parc des Expositions, Nancy, France
March 27, 1973
Tonight we’re heading to France for Led Zeppelin’s Heavy Machinery, an audience recording from their 1973 European tour. This is a different setting from the early American club shows or the outdoor Australian concerts: an exhibition hall in Nancy, with four musicians bringing an increasingly ambitious body of music to the stage.
Led Zeppelin formed in 1968 with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Within five years, they had moved from their blues foundations through the heavier second album, the broader directions of Led Zeppelin III and the extraordinary success of their fourth album. By March 1973, their concerts had to accommodate all of that history while making room for the next chapter.
The new material gives this recording much of its character. “The Song Remains the Same” and “The Rain Song” appear together, introducing two very different sides of the music that would become Houses of the Holy.
One moves with restless speed; the other takes its time, allowing the arrangement and Plant’s vocal to unfold gradually. Hearing them alongside the older songs helps place this concert at a particular moment in the band’s development.
John Paul Jones is especially important to that change. His work on bass and keyboards gives Zeppelin the ability to move between a hard-driving rock band and something with a much wider range of textures. The Mellotron brings another dimension to “The Rain Song,” while Page’s guitar supplies both the momentum and the detail.
Bonham holds those changes together without losing the force that makes this unmistakably Led Zeppelin.
The opening stretch gets straight to business. “Rock and Roll,” “Over the Hills and Far Away” and “Black Dog” lead into the pairing of “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” That transition takes us from the sharp, repeating keyboard figure of the first song into the slow blues of the second, where Plant and Page have room to answer each other.
Then there is “Dazed and Confused.” By this point, the song had become a place where Zeppelin could depart from the familiar arrangement and explore ideas that belonged specifically to the live performance.
The “San Francisco” passage is part of that journey here. It’s one of the reasons these recordings are worth returning to: knowing the studio song doesn’t tell you everything that will happen when the band plays it onstage.
“Stairway to Heaven” brings the concert back to a more recognizable shape before “Whole Lotta Love” opens the door again. Its medley draws on the blues and early rock and roll that helped bring these musicians together in the first place. Even as their own writing became more elaborate, those roots remained an active part of the show.
Heavy Machinery preserves the Nancy performance as an audience recording, so you’re hearing the band from within the hall, with the room and the crowd around them. There are small cuts in “The Rain Song,” and the recording does not preserve the encores. The tracks below represent the Nancy material included in this presentation.
For those following our recent Zeppelin shows, this one brings us forward to 1973: a band with an established catalogue, new music entering the programme and plenty of room left for the performance to take its own course.
Artists
Robert Plant — Lead vocals and harmonica
Jimmy Page — Electric guitars
John Paul Jones — Bass guitar, keyboards and Mellotron
John Bonham — Drums and percussion
Tracklist
1 — Rock and Roll
2 — Over the Hills and Far Away
3 — Black Dog
4 — Misty Mountain Hop
5 — Since I’ve Been Loving You
6 — The Song Remains the Same
7 — The Rain Song
8 — Dazed and Confused
9 — Stairway to Heaven
10 — Whole Lotta Love — Medley
All rights to the music and performances belong to their respective owners. If you enjoy what you hear, please support Led Zeppelin through their official releases.
Thank you for listening, watching, liking, sharing and subscribing to Tales of the Sonic Voyage. We appreciate everyone who spends part of their day or night here with us, and everyone who helps these performances reach another listener. Close description
