More rare concert footage of Led Zeppelin performing in 1970 has been restored and uploaded to YouTube.
The band’s show at Los Angeles’ Inglewood Forum on September 4th, 1970 has long existed as an audio bootleg titled On Blueberry Hill. Bootleg trader John Waters has now synced the recordings with unearthed video shot by Zeppelin fan Eddie Vincent. This follows archival 8mm footage of the band performing at Madison Square Garden in the ’70s that hit YouTube back in May.
Back then, Vincent would have had to sneak in his camera, which could only shoot 30 seconds at a time. The clips have a charming lo-fi graininess and have since been compiled into a short film of sorts, complete with audio, as 8mm cameras didn’t capture audio.
“I had really great seats,” Vincent told Classic Rock magazine of the 1970 concert. “They were right behind the band. I had seats in the front row, right behind John Bonham’s kit. The only problem was that you couldn’t really see John because the gong was there, but he came around and chatted to us while they were doing the acoustic set.”
Vincent eventually forgot about the footage, which was stored away for decades. Fifty years later, he finally dug out the film and made contact with Waters, who handled the restoration and compilation of the various 30-second clips.
“The music needs to be out there,” Vincent said. “I know a lot of collectors and traders that don’t give their stuff away, and that’s a shame to me. Music’s to be shared, and today you need it to get away from the crazy world. And if this film brings a lot of people happiness, hey, we did a good job.”
Commented Waters in the YouTube description: “Old concert film is important and must be preserved! If you shot film in the past, traded and collected reels, or just bought them from the classifieds of rock magazines in the ’70s and ’80s, it’s important we save these.”
Below you can view the restored Led Zeppelin concert footage from 1970.
