LedZepFilm has released an 84-minute edit of all available footage of Led Zeppelin performing at Bath Festival on June 28, 1970.
The synchronised footage comes after Hathor Publishing, the business run by film director Peter Whitehead’s estate, released public screener copies of three videos relating to the performance.
The video by LedZepFilm collects all available footage of the performance, encompassing footage shot by Whitehead and cameraman Ernest Vincze during the evening, audience footage and material shot after the sun set during the festival.
Audio used in the video originates from an audience recording of the performance and from the fragments of audio recorded by Whitehead’s film crew that have been released so far.
“The sync, at least for the daytime footage – which is stunning quality – was quite easy, despite some wild closeups and pan-overs to the audience,” LedZepFilm told LedZepNews.
“Some shots you have to estimate without further context. The night time footage, although dark, has enough clues (particularly ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and the start of the rock medley where there is higher focus on John Bonham) to figure out eventually,” he continued. “Robert [Plant] does a lot of ad-libbing around this time so any close-ups on him are thankfully easy as it’s a matter of seeing if he puts the mic to his face or not. Shots of Jimmy [Page] soloing without seeing his fingers are intuition I’ve picked up on his body language.”
“The daytime 16mm footage is excellent, and the company Hathor used to scan it mostly did a great job,” he explained. “Unfortunately the rolls shot by Peter Whitehead came out overexposed, which seems to fall on the scanning lab as these parts aren’t overexposed on the older Mini DV transfers partially released by KinoLibrary.”
“The film crew’s audio sounds like you’d expect for being on the side of the stage, away from both most of the PA speakers and John Paul Jones’ amps. It’s very similar to the rough audio used on the bootlegs of the Royal Albert Hall footage,” he added.
The emergence of the screener copies of the footage came after the film’s existence was confirmed in 2017. Part of the footage was released online in 2022 but removed in 2024. A trailer using the film crew’s audio was released in 2025, with LedZepNews speaking to Hathor’s archivist earlier this year.
The Bath Festival 1970 footage is an “unheard blessing for fans of Led Zeppelin”, according to LedZepFilm.
“The Bath footage has been rumored for over 50 years, and there have been dozens of tales of who’s hoarding it, who’s seen it, and who’s tried to sell it to the band,” he said. “The Bath Festival captures a transitionary time for the band, just after getting off touring their second album and part-way through recording the third.”
“Watching ‘Immigrant Song’ holds more weight after hearing Robert tell people how nervous he was before going on stage – they’re playing for a sea of people (probably their largest audience to date) and taking a risk playing a song they’ve never done before. Footage of the debut of ‘That’s the Way’ is also priceless,” he continued.
Following the emergence of the footage, much online discussion has centred around whether Led Zeppelin may eventually license or buy the footage for its own use.
“I think it would be tough to present a version of this that’s fully releasable,” LedZepFilm said. “Whitehead set out to film B-roll and the results are just that. The audio is clearly rough compared to the pristine multi-track recorded at the Royal Albert Hall just 6 months earlier.”
“Given the significance of capturing the first complete ‘Immigrant Song’, it could be used in full somewhere but the audio runs the risk to be a tough sell,” he said. “That being said, at best it could have use in documentaries about the band or the era, but I’m grateful the public can now see every frame rather than something tidy and edited.”
I would love to see it as I was there with a couple of pals,I got into LZ the year before,so the 3 of us had to go.
Myself and a few friends traveled from stoke on trent. I suppose you would say it was a Uk version of Woodstock. Led Zeppelin were amazing. What I found was very interesting. They played their first 3 or 4 songs before any intro by the band. Yes nervous on all sides. Fans and the band. It was an amazing event.
Cool to finally see it, but pretty frustrating content wise.
This footage is historic. Thank you to everyone involved that put it together for us.
who was manning the camera from front of the stage about 30m out , any footage mystery? But the footage of the guy blowing bubbles during Jimmy’s guitar solo sums up the mobile camera man’s wrong priorities . But the overall footage warts and all is fascinating for all the Zepheads !