The Yardbirds

★★★

Live In France REPERTOIRE. CD/LP

Fantastic live performances from Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page line-ups.

Fifteen recordings for French TV and radio, the first from June 20, 1965, three months after Eric Clapton had left. The Yardbirds are supporting The Beatles and the screams are deafening, but the performance tentative, Beck still finding his feet on For Your Love and I Wish You Would. By June 27, ’66, at the Music Hall de France, with Page on bass, Beck is incendiary, tearing through Train Kept A-Rollin’, Shapes Of Things and Over, Under, Sideways, Down. On the remainder, from the Grand Spectacle de Jeunes, Paris in ’67 and Bouton Rouge at Maison de la Radio, Paris in ’68, we see the future. With Beck gone, Page is at the helm: magnificent on You’re A Better Man Than I and especially so with bow on Dazed And Confused. Lois Wilson