led zeppelin us tour 1977

Listen To This Eddie: Inside The Tour That Grounded Led Zeppelin With Drugs, Violence, And Tragedy

Listen To This Eddie is a bi-weekly column that examines the important people and events in the classic rock canon and how they continue to impact the world of popular music.

Throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Led Zeppelin earned a reputation for being the biggest, and heaviest band in rock and roll. Their genre-defining records set the template for brutal, blues-based rock that thousands, maybe even millions of bands have tried to adopt in their wake. But for as crucial as their recorded output was, it was on the road that they really burnished their standings as the wildest, most sonically adventurous band in a decade overflowing with groups who made names for themselves by redefining the very definition of the word debauchery.

Even for as wild as the stories about mud sharks and racing motorcycles up and down the halls of hotels are, it was onstage where the real fireworks happened. “The records were just a starting point,” bassist John Paul Jones once explained. “The most important thing was always the stage show… at our worst we were still better than most. At our best we could just wipe the floor with the lot of them.” For almost ten years that statement was almost indisputably true, until suddenly it wasn’t.

Exactly 40 years ago, in the Spring and Summer of 1977, Led Zeppelin embarked on what would be their final tour through the country that made them superstars. The British group’s run through America that year was supposed to mark their return as the biggest rock band on the planet, after a future rendered uncertain by a catastrophic car accident that involved singer Robert Plant the year before. As it turned out, their presumptive moment of triumph was marked by bad vibes, lingering illnesses, heavy drug use, messy performances, violence, and even riots, that all ended in a tragedy that nearly derailed the group entirely. Here’s the story of how it all went down.

On August 5, 1975, Plant and his family were vacationing in the Greek Island of Rhodes. Led Zeppelin were less than five months removed from some of the greatest performances they’d ever staged at London’s Earls Court arena, and had scattered to the wind in order to avoid England’s more severe tax laws. Plant was behind the wheel of a car, navigating the hilly countryside when his vehicle went over a cliff. His wife Maureen nearly died — actually her heart stopped for a moment in the hospital — and the Plant himself suffered a severely broken ankle that left him confined to a wheelchair for months.

All immediate plans within the band were put on hold to allow Plant time to recover. In the meantime, the band put finishing touches on their concert film The Song Remains The Same , that had been recorded across three shows at Madison Square Garden in 1973, and released it in theaters in October 1976. After a few months, Plant apparently felt well enough to re-enter the studio and begin work on the band’s seventh album Presence . They rehearsed it in Los Angeles before recording the entire thing in just 18 days at Musicland Studios in Munich, West Germany.

Plant, who was now on crutches, suffered another medical setback when he fell while laying down the vocals to the album’s centerpiece song “Achilles Last Stand.” As he told Rolling Stone , “Enthusiasm got the better of me. I was running to the vocal booth with this orthopedic crutch when down I went, straight on the bad foot. There was an almighty crack and a great flash of pain and I folded up in agony.”

Beyond the obvious physical pain, Plant was also beginning to question internally whether the costs of recording and continuing the machine that was Led Zeppelin was even worth it any more. “I was really frustrated,” he said in Chris Welch’s book Led Zeppelin . “I was furious with [Jimmy] Page and [band manager] Peter Grant. I was just furious that I couldn’t get back to the woman and the children that I loved. And I was thinking, is all this rock and roll worth anything at all?”

Around the same time Plant was experiencing existential doubts about continuing with Led Zeppelin, the group’s leader Jimmy Page was indulging in a pretty significant love affair with heroin. Page had dabbled with the opiate going all the way back to 1973, but lately, it had taken a noticeable toll. His already slender frame grew even more gaunt, and his already pale skin turned translucent. He could still play, and perform, but he’d grown far more withdrawn. People within the band’s orbit genuinely feared for his health.

Despite their many ailments, reservations and burgeoning love of narcotics — or booze as was the case for drummer John Bonham — the monster that was Led Zeppelin continued lurching forward. The band bunkered down for two months’ worth of rehearsals at Manticore Studios in London, and as soon as Plant proved that he could perform onstage once again for their mammoth three-hour extravaganzas, their manager booked a full-scale tour in the US that was scheduled to kick off on February 27, 1977 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Before they could even depart for their transatlantic excursion however, Plant contracted a severe case of laryngitis that pushed the entire run back four days, so that the tour officially began on April Fool’s Day in nearby Dallas. LA Times critic Robert Hilburn was on hand that evening and described the show as containing “rough spots,” and that “there was only jubilation on the faces of Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham after the three-hour show as they raced to limousines for the ride to the airport.”

After that first gig, Plant told Hilburn that the experience was “emotional” and that, “We had just cleared the biggest hurdle of our career. It was a chapter in my life that I never really knew if I’d be able to see.” Adding that, “The whole show possessed an element of emotionalism that I’ve never known before. I could just as easily have knelt on the stage and cried. I was so happy.”

Just like their last outing in America in 1975, this jaunt was the pinnacle of excess. The band stayed in only the finest luxury hotels and moved between gigs on a private 707 jet airliner named Caesar’s Chariot. 51 shows had been booked in some of the biggest venues America had to offer. Over 1.3 million tickets had been sold. At the Pontiac Silverdome just outside of Detroit, they broke the world’s indoor attendance record by performing in front of 76,229 screaming Zeppelin fanatics.

To help burnish their reputation, the notoriously press-averse band even allowed a handful of reporters — like Hilburn — to see their shows and ask them questions, though the rules, as outlined by journalist publicist Steven Rosen were strict.

1. Never talk to anyone in the band unless they first talk to you. 1A. Do not make any sort of eye contact with John Bonham. This is for your own safety. 2. Do not talk to Peter Grant or [Tour Manager] Richard Cole — for any reason. 3. Keep your cassette player turned off at all times unless conducting an interview. 4. Never ask questions about anything other than music. 5. Most importantly, understand this — the band will read what is written about them. The band does not like the press nor do they trust them.”

Those first few days out on the road were pretty positive, but the feeling didn’t last for long. Page in particular seemed to be in a foul mood, whether because of his drug use, his liquid-only diet, or general malaise. Jack Kalmes, the head of Showco, the production company running the tour remembered in the oral history Trampled Underfoot that, “I showed up on the third date at the start of the tour. The mood was ugly and there had been a buzz in the PA and Jimmy had come over and thrown a trash can over one of the main techs.” Another Showco employee recalled the time that Page got up and spit in the face of tech during the middle of the band’s acoustic showcase in front of 50,000 people.

Still, for as surly as Page was, his behavior paled in comparison to the rage that poured out of the man everyone called, “The Beast.” The experience of being out on the road and away from his family was a miserable one for drummer John Bonham. He used heavy doses of vodka to drown his melancholy, which turned him into an absolute animal. “Bonzo was a sweet, cuddly, goofy fella until he got drunk and then you wanted to avoid him,” Queen of the groupies Pamela Des Barres said. “I saw him slug my friend Michelle Myer right in the jaw just for being in the doorway with him at the Rainbow.”

Richard Cole, the tour manager said that, “The last American tour was f*cking horrible. There was no camaraderie between anyone.” All the frivolity and partying that marked their earlier excursions through America was gone, as Zeppelin was cocooned into their own insular world through an outsized security apparatus. “There were bodyguards everywhere, and that was a real big sea change from ’75 to ’77,” journalist Jaan Uhelski remembered in Trampled Underfoot . “There was just a cloud that seemed to hang over everybody.”

As for the audiences that turned out in droves to see them, most came away from the experience pretty well pleased, while also acknowledging that the band wasn’t as good as they had been in year’s past. Plant’s voice was a little deeper, a little more ragged than it had been before. Page’s solos, especially on “Dazed And Confused,” tended to fly right past transcendence and land squarely in the realm of self-indulgent, but the same could be said for John Paul Jones’ moment bathed in dry ice on “No Quarter” and John Bonham’s drum clinic “Moby Dick.” In other words, there were plentiful bathroom break opportunities.

A show in Chicago on April 9 ended two hours early because of Page’s “stomach cramps.” Another show in Cincinnati resulted in 70 arrests after 1,000 ticketless fans rushed the gates. A similar scenario played out in Tampa Bay after lightning storms ended the concert early and police used tear gas to try and disperse the crowd.

Still, for all the shoddy concerts — the stops in Tempe, Arizona, Greensboro, North Carolina and San Diego, California from this tour rank as probably one, two and three on the list of worst shows Zeppelin ever performed — they still had the ability to pull it together on occasion and offer the crowd their best. Their six-night residency at the Los Angeles Forum that began on June 21, 1977 and ended on June 27 ranks as among the finest moments in the band’s history. That first night was actually recorded by an intrepid bootlegger and was released onto the black market as Listen To This Eddie , the namesake of this very column. The Eddie in question refers to producer/engineer Eddie Kramer, who recorded the band for The Song Remains The Same .

As Elizabeth Iannaci, a rep from Atlantic Records, recalled in Trampled Underfoot , “They were at the fabulous Forum on that ’77 tour. I was standing at the edge of the stage watching. During ‘Going To California,’ someone threw a bouquet of flowers on to the stage and Robert picked it up. And as he sang the line about the girl with flowers in her hair, he walked over and presented the bouquet to me. Twenty thousand fans went f*cking wild, and I thought to myself, ‘This is why they do cocaine.’ Until you have that kind of energy directed toward you, there really isn’t any way to get it or to understand it.”

All of the bad vibes finally came to a head at the band’s show at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Led Zeppelin’s two-night residency at the large outdoor venue was being promoted by concert impresario Bill Graham, who they already had had some rough dealings with them in the past. The trouble began when Peter Grant’s 11-year-old son Warren tried to take down a dressing room sign bearing the band’s name and was assaulted by a member of Graham’s staff, Jim Matzorkis. This was a huge no-no. Peter Grant was a mountain of a man; a former professional wrestler who carried with him an extremely short temper.

Bonham saw the whole thing and went after the worker. Eventually, Grant himself, along with John Bindon, a member of Zeppelin’s crew and a well-known London gangster, cornered Matzorkis in a trailer and savagely beat him down, while Cole guarded the door, refusing to let anyone in. Obviously, Graham was furious about the whole thing, but with another show the next night still on the books, he signed a letter of indemnification, absolving the band from any wrongdoing in order to get them back on the stage. Nevertheless, charges were eventually filed against Grant, Bindon and Bonham who all later pled no contest and paid a small fine to make the whole thing disappear.

As it turned out, Zeppelin’s second show in Oakland on July 24 would be the final time they ever played in America. Two days later, the band was in New Orleans prepping for their next performance when Plant received a phone call from back home informing him that his five-year-old son Karac died from a stomach infection. The entire tour was immediately cancelled as Plant flew home to be with his family.

More than just emotionally devastating, which, of course it was, the loss of his son drove a wedge between Plant and the rest of the band, specifically Jimmy Page, and made him once again question whether or not he wanted to continue. “During the absolute darkest times of my life when I lost my boy and my family was in disarray, it was Bonzo who came to me,” Plant said in a 2005 interview. “The other guys were [from] the South [of England] and didn’t have the same type of social etiquette that we have up here in the North that could actually bridge that uncomfortable chasm with all the sensitivities required… to console.” Page and Jones both failed to show up to Karac’s funeral, and it’s pretty easy to draw a line between Plant’s latter day blasé attitude about his band to this singular traumatic experience.

Of course, Led Zeppelin weren’t quite done by then. Two years later, in 1979, they got back together and released another album In Through The Out Door , played two monumental shows in Knebworth, England , before embarking on a tour through Europe in 1980. They had planned another trip through America shortly thereafter, but sadly it was not to be. John Bonham died of asphyxiation in his sleep after a night of heavy drinking in Page’s home on September 25. Led Zeppelin were no more.

“The 1977 tour ended because I lost my boy, but it had also ended before it ended, really,” Plant said in Trampled Underfoot . “It was just a mess. Where was the actual axis of all this stuff? Who do I go to if it’s really bad for me? There was nobody. Everybody was insular, developing their own worlds.”

The Bootleg Bin

Up until last week, Bob Seger remained the last big holdout from releasing his music on streaming services. Though you still can’t listen to a lot of his earlier work with the Seger System — for the love of God, can we please just have Mongrel ? — you can finally easily access some of his biggest records with the Silver Bullet Band like Night Moves and Against The Wind .

In what should come as a small surprise to anyone who follows along to this column, my favorite Seger release is his monster double-LP Live Bullet , that was recorded at Cobo Hall in his hometown of Detroit in September 1975. Beyond that spectacular album, there really isn’t much out there to document what a tremendous live performer Seger was at the peak of his powers. As far as I can tell, some of the best video footage that exists comes from a show he performed in San Diego in 1978. The footage shows the Detroit rocker at his rambling, gambling best, belting out hits like “Hollywood Nights” alongside crowd favorites like “Still The Same.” It’s not hard to see why people were so eager to stack him against the likes of Bruce Springsteen so frequently early on in their respective careers.

Unseen Led Zeppelin footage appears from the band’s record-breaking 1977 set at the Pontiac Silverdome

The 23-minute, 8mm footage has been carefully restored by a four-strong team and shows the band rip through a 20-song set in front of over 76,000 fans

Previously unseen footage of Led Zeppelin performing at Michigan’s Pontiac Silverdome on April 30, 1977, has emerged online. The 23-minute clip captures the band playing to a then-world record 76,200-strong crowd for a single-act show.

Tickets for the show, in support of Zeppelin’s seventh studio album Presence , cost $10.50 and saw the band rifle through the likes of In My Time of Dying , Kasmir and Rock and Roll . 

After a minute or so of pre-show hype, including a fan appearing to climb the stage rigging with a blow-up doll for, er company, we finally see Jimmy Page and his iconic twin neck Gibson EDS-1275 cut a figure in front of John Bonham’s kit.

Alongside his Gibson Les Paul Standard and an acoustic guitar , Page can also be seen playing his Danelectro 59 DC electric guitar on the DADGAD classic, Kashmir.  

The 8mm film’s restoration, shot within the crowd giving it a real immersive, time capsule feel, was a team effort. It was transferred to digital by the Genesis Museum, who will be known by ‘70s fanatics for their work on the recently released 4K remaster of Genesis's 1973 Shepperton Studios set, with production handled by fellow Genesis fan Ikhnaton.

The film restoration work and syncing to bootleg audio was carried out by two names familiar with Led Zeppelin bootleg collectors, Etienne and LedZepFilm, who are dab hands at these joyously nostalgic restorations.

The live footage appears on a YouTube channel dedicated to archiving the late Jim ‘Speedy’ Kelly, a professional photographer who regularly captured footage of shows in the ‘70s. Alongside Led Zeppelin, he immortalised performances by Van Halen, Alice Cooper, Yes, Queen, Rush and Pink Floyd.

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Of the restoration process, LedZepFilm explains: "Usually I take the audio source as gospel and sync the film accordingly. I may adjust the audio if it runs too fast or slow to my ears and then go from there. Some clips may be adjusted differently than others. But of course, as you probably know, the speed can never truly be 100% correct because both sources are analog!" 

Eagle-eyed viewers might spot the presence of camera operators peppering the outskirts of the stage. However, there’s doubt cast on whether that footage, likely shot by cameramen employed by production company Worldstage, was saved beyond its use for the big screen on the night. That makes this crowd-underscored footage even more special.

According to the website Bootledz , which charters the whole 36-date tour, the set kicked off with The Song Remains the Same . The 20-song set then concluded with a staggering final four of Achilles Last Stand, Stairway to Heaven, Rock and Roll and Trampled Under Foot . The tour eventually wrapped up July 24 at the Oakland Coliseum Stadium, home of the baseball team Oakland Athletics. 

• The Song Remains the Same
• The Rover (introduction)
• Nobody's Fault but Mine
• In My Time of Dying
• Since I've Been Loving You
• Ten Years Gone
• The Battle of Evermore
• Going to California
• Black Country Woman
• Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
• White Summer / Black Mountain Side
• Out On the Tiles (introduction)
• Guitar solo
• Achilles Last Stand
• Stairway to Heaven
• Rock and Roll
• Trampled Under Foot

New Led Zeppelin bootlegs continue to surface. Last year, never-before-seen 8mm footage of Led Zeppelin's 1975 show in Maryland appeared online , as did a high-quality bootleg recording of a 1972 set in Kyoto .

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A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog , Guitar World , and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis , in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.

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Led Zeppelin 1977 07 17 Seattle (Full Video with Remastered Audio Matrix)

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Led Zeppelin

• April 30, 1977 Setlist

Led Zeppelin Setlist at Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac, MI, USA

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• The Song Remains the Same Play Video
• Sick Again Play Video
• Nobody's Fault but Mine ( Blind Willie Johnson  cover) Play Video
• In My Time of Dying ( Blind Willie Johnson  cover) Play Video
• Since I've Been Loving You Play Video
• No Quarter Play Video
• Ten Years Gone Play Video
• The Battle of Evermore Play Video
• Going to California Play Video
• Black Country Woman Play Video
• Bron-Y-Aur Stomp Play Video
• White Summer/Black Mountain Side Play Video
• Kashmir Play Video
• Moby Dick Play Video
• Guitar Solo Play Video
• Achilles Last Stand Play Video
• Stairway to Heaven Play Video
• Rock and Roll Play Video
• Trampled Under Foot Play Video

Edits and Comments

24 activities (last edit by ExecutiveChimp , 6 Mar 2015, 05:00 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Black Country Woman
• Ten Years Gone
• Trampled Under Foot
• Going to California
• Rock and Roll
• Stairway to Heaven
• The Battle of Evermore
• The Song Remains the Same
• Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
• Since I've Been Loving You
• In My Time of Dying by Blind Willie Johnson
• Nobody's Fault but Mine by Blind Willie Johnson
• White Summer/Black Mountain Side
• Achilles Last Stand
• Guitar Solo

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Led zeppelin gig timeline.

• Apr 27 1977 Richfield Coliseum Richfield, OH, USA Add time Add time
• Apr 28 1977 Richfield Coliseum Richfield, OH, USA Add time Add time
• Apr 30 1977 Pontiac Silverdome This Setlist Pontiac, MI, USA Add time Add time
• May 18 1977 Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum Birmingham, AL, USA Add time Add time
• May 19 1977 LSU Assembly Center Baton Rouge, LA, USA Add time Add time

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The Last Days Of Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin’s final tour of the US in 1977 should have been their most glorious. But it wasn’t. There was tension, unpleasantness and negativity, and that was just the start

It's April 15, 1977. Tonight Led Zeppelin play the ninth date of the second leg of their eleventh American tour. I’m on board Caesar’s Chariot, the band’s customised Boeing 707 jet. Named after the conquering emperor who was ultimately doomed by an addiction to his own glory, this gleaming, luxuriously appointed flying fortress now carries an invading force of a different kind. Just hours earlier, Zeppelin had annihilated a sell-out audience of pagan revellers at the St Louis Blues Arena. Now we’re returning to Chicago where, for the next several weeks, the band have set up their base of operations for the tour.

On the previous two tours, in 1973 and 1975, they adopted a similar strategy – positioning themselves in one location and then flying out to concerts. It’s the brainchild of tour manager Richard Cole, Zep manager Peter Grant’s first lieutenant and long-time ‘fixer’.

“It [Led Zeppelin’s 1977 tour] wasn’t a lot different to me from the ’75 tour,” Cole says. “It was the same process of working, you know. We had our 707 jet, and I worked out what cities were in range of Chicago. It was easier to leave at three or four in the afternoon, go to our plane and fly straight into the city we were performing in, leave straight afterwards and go back to Chicago.”

That’s where we’re headed now. I’ve been ensconced in Chicago’s Ambassador East Hotel for 11 days; a week-and-a-half of unchecked excess and dark rumblings. The former balanced the latter. The plane, for instance, has been refitted to include a bar, two bedrooms, a 30-foot couch, and a Hammond organ. Luxury comes at an uncomfortable price – the aircraft costs $2,500 per day to lease. Is it worth it? Who cares? Not Led Zeppelin.

Still, amid this luxury you can’t help but notice how drummer John Bonham lumbers about the cabin, a bottle of something in his hand, greeting everyone he encounters with barely concealed contempt. He walks past me, and I don’t dare make eye contact – it is one of the many instructions I’ve been given for my stay with Led Zeppelin.

On the day I arrived, a limo had been sent to the airport to collect me. Janine Safer, the group’s publicist, accompanied me as we rode to the hotel. Along the way she laid down five rules that had to be strictly adhered to while caught up in this travelling circus. Rule 1: Never talk to anyone in the band unless they first talk to you. Rule 2: Do not talk to Peter Grant or Richard Cole – for any reason. Rule 3: Keep your cassette recorder turned off at all times unless conducting an interview. Rule 4: Never ask questions about anything other than music. Rule 5: Most importantly, understand this – the band will read what is written about them. The band do not like the press.

Only a couple days earlier was I finally granted my first audience with Jimmy Page. I had begun to think that it was never going to happen. Then my room phone rang and a voice informed me that Jimmy would see me now.

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As I was ushered (you never walked anywhere within the hotel without an escort) into his spectacular suite, it was impossible not to notice the busted telephone hole in the wall and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s perched on his bedside table. The bottle was up-ended at regular intervals during our conversation, his speech becoming increasingly slurred and deliberate. 

This was more than a guitarist getting drunk in the early afternoon – it’s 1977, Zeppelin’s eleventh US tour, and Page’s drinking habits have by now been well-documented. No, there’s more: an underlying current of anger in his every slowly muttered word, as if he’s in a constant posture of self-defence, or even paranoia. In fact, he’s ripped the telephone from the wall because he felt intruded upon and didn’t want spying ears listening in.

“I’ve got two different approaches,” Page explained, as he fiddled with the remnants of the broken telephone receiver. “I mean, on stage is totally different than the way I approach it in the studio. On Presence, I had control over all the contributing factors to that LP; the fact that it was done in three weeks, and all the rest of it, is so good for me. It was just good for everything, really, even though it was a very anxious point, and the anxiety shows group-wise, you know: ‘Is Robert [Plant] going to walk again from his auto accident in Greece?’ and all that sort of thing.”

Jimmy appears to be obviously still feeling the pain of that near-fatal accident. On August 4, 1975, Plant, his wife Maureen, Plant’s sister, their children and Page’s children were all in a rented car that skidded out of control. Robert suffered a broken ankle and elbow, and the children were severely bruised and traumatised.

And so the tour in 1977 kicked off under a black cloud. This is just a small taste of the underlying drama that seemed to envelop every aspect of the tour in a dark mist. No one realised it at the time, of course, but the ’77 jaunt would prove to be Led Zeppelin’s final fully-blown march across America – their swansong.

Upon boarding Caesar’s Chariot for the return from St Louis to Chicago, Janine Safer told me that the all-important follow-up interview with Jimmy may happen on tonight’s flight. You come to recognise, early on, that the Zeppelin machine is well-oiled and finely tuned. Schedules are maintained and rigidly enforced. If anything is going to happen, it’s because Zeppelin want it to – and when they want it to. They wield total control.

A short while later I am told that I can have 15 minutes with Jimmy (on a flight that lasts only 30). After reaching cruising altitude, I’m accompanied to the rear of the plane. Safer is on point, a monster of a security guard follows her, then me, and another security soldier brings up the rear. I greet Jimmy (it’s difficult to tell whether or not he recognises me), sit down, and we begin talking.

“When all the equipment came over here [to the US, for the tour], we had done our rehearsals, and we were really on top, really in tip-top form. Then Robert caught laryngitis and we had to postpone a lot of dates and reshuffle them, and I didn’t touch a guitar for five weeks. I got a bit panicky about that – after two years off the road, that’s a lot to think about. And I’m still only warming up; I still can’t co-ordinate a lot of the things I need to be doing. Getting by, but it’s not right; I don’t feel 100 per cent right yet.”

As I’m hunched over, trying to hear him above the din of the whirring white noise, from behind, a vice-like grip grabs my right shoulder. I’m thinking that was a fast 15 minutes, when I’m physically lifted from the seat and violently spun around. Standing before me is one seriously pissed-off John Paul Jones. And that’s when my world unravels.

“Rosen, you fucking cunt liar. I should fucking kill you.” The venom in his voice staggers me. I feel as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. But each time I shut my eyes and open them I’m still there, standing vulnerable on an aeroplane travelling at 600 miles an hour towards a destination I now don’t want to reach.

Two days ago it had been a different story. John Paul and I had spent some illuminating time together. No Jack Daniel’s, no busted phone, just a soft-spoken bass player telling me about how he met Page and got into this in the first place.

“I’d been doing sessions for three or four years, on and off,” he said. “I’d met Jimmy on sessions before; it was always Big Jim and Little Jim – Big Jim Sullivan [leading session guitarist] and Little Jim [Page] and myself and a drummer. Apart from group sessions where he’d play solos and stuff like that, Page always ended up on rhythm guitar because he couldn’t read [music] too well. He could read chord symbols and stuff, but he’d have to do anything they’d ask when he walked into a session. So I used to see a lot of him just sitting there with an acoustic guitar, sort of raking out chords.

“I always thought the bass player’s life was much more interesting in those days, because nobody knew how to write for bass, so they used to say: ‘We’ll give you the chord sheet, and get on with it.’ So even on the worst sessions you could have a little runaround…”

From there, Jones had got into working from home, arranging material for other people. “I joined Led Zeppelin, I suppose, after my missus said to me: ‘Will you stop moping around the house? Why don’t you join a band or something?’ And I said: ‘There’s no bands I want to join, what are you talking about?’ And she said: ‘Well, look, Jimmy Page is forming a group’; I think it was in Disc magazine. ‘Why don’t you give him a ring?’

“So I rang him up and said: ‘Jim, how you doing? Have you got a group yet?’ [He hadn’t.] And I said: ‘Well, if you want a bass player, give me a ring.’ And he said: ‘All right. I’m going up [to Birmingham] to see this singer that Terry Reid told me about, and he might know a drummer as well. I’ll call you when I’ve seen what they’re like.’

“He went up there, saw Robert Plant, and said: ‘This guy is really something.’ We started under the name the New Yardbirds, because nobody would book us under anything else. We rehearsed an act, an album and a tour in about three weeks, and it took off.

“The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other,” Jones had recalled of the band’s early days. “It was wall-to-wall amplifiers. Jimmy said: ‘Do you know a number called Train Kept A-Rollin’ ?’ I told him: ‘No.’ And he said: ‘It’s easy, just G to A.’ He counted it in… and the room just exploded. We said: ‘Right, we’re on. This is it, this is going to work!’ And we just built it up from there. [And now] I wouldn’t be without Zeppelin for the world.”

You couldn’t help but believe Jones. Led Zeppelin was his life and passion and he was forever protecting it, as he told me, from those who would try to run it down. He was talking about critics, in the main, journalists who would tell him how much they admired the band and then turn around and write scathing reviews.

Confronting me now on board the band’s plane was all that passion turned poisonous. The bassist hurls curse after curse. Although I’ve never been in a fight in my life, his veiled threats don’t cause me too much alarm. Jones, I felt, was someone against whom I could probably hold my own. The guys behind him, on the other hand… They shoot me with looks that convey a pretty simple message: make even the slightest motion towards this man before you and you’ll regret it.

At that point I notice there, in his right hand, a copy of Rock Guitarist . Jones has rolled it up into a tube and smacks it repeatedly into his open left palm. On the cover of the book is a picture of Jeff Beck; inside is the Jeff Beck interview I’d written some years earlier. I had brought copies for him and Jimmy; Jones and Page both knew Beck, of course, and I thought the gesture would present me with a bit of street cred.

But it’s this story that has made Jones go crazy. It was my breakthrough as a fledgling writer. In effect, it – and nearly a year’s worth of phone calls to the Swan Song offices in New York – had got me to Led Zeppelin. And now, after getting this close, it suddenly looks like I am going to leave empty handed. For it’s at that moment that it hits me: the realisation that I have sent Jones off the deep end because I’ve betrayed his trust. 

Repeatedly I told him how honoured I was to be on the road with him, and he believed what I said – until he read what I’d written in the Beck piece. The very thing that has brought me here is going to bury me. I had been warned. I should have remembered the fifth rule (‘the band read everything written about them’). For in the intro to the Jeff Beck piece, written three years previously, was the following assessment of Page’s early work: ‘A contemporary of Beck, Jimmy Page has failed to recreate the magic he performed as guitarist for The Yardbirds. Led Zeppelin started off as nothing more than a grandiose reproduction of Beck’s past work…’ and so on. It was stupid and ridiculous, and I’m ashamed to this day for writing it.

John Paul Jones stands before me, demanding all my interview tapes from this spell with the band be returned. I oblige instantly.

The JPJ encounter would finally resolve itself. But in order to put things in proper perspective it’s essential to understand the juggernaut that Led Zeppelin were at that time. By 1977 the quartet had nothing left to prove and no one left to prove it to. On April 30 that year, the band had set a new world record for the largest paid attendance at a single-artist performance when they drew 76,229 people to a concert at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. The show grossed a staggering $792,361 (also a new record), after having sold out in one – pre-internet, remember – day.

The previous year Led Zeppelin had swept the boards in Circus magazine’s readers’ poll, winning best band, guitarist, vocalist and songwriting team.

Also in 1976, the group released Presence , an album that revealed the band’s complex musical make-up (although it didn’t sell very well), followed later the same year by the soundtrack for The Song Remains The Same , the film revealing personality-through-indulgence. The hedonism it reflected would be carried to ridiculous extremes on Zeppelin’s ’77 tour.

Here was a band that lived life like superheroes. They were treated as kings, and couldn’t see – or refused to see – that they were being devoured by the very machine they had created. But when you were with them, you too became a part of their larger-than-life adventure.

“I’m sure we all felt a little invincible on this tour,” explained Gary Carnes, head of the lighting crew. “By being associated with Led Zeppelin, it seemed impossible not to have a false sense of power. I’m sure the band felt that way, and I know everyone on the road crew had a feeling of being invulnerable.”

I had arrived during the first leg of the tour, which began on April 1 in Dallas, Texas. Notwithstanding the record-breaking attendances and grosses that would come, everything seems filtered through a glass, darkly. No one is able to erase Plant’s near-disastrous car accident a couple years earlier, and now the 51-show, 30-city invasion kicks off a month late due to his contracting a throat infection. Additionally, Peter Grant has suffered through the ignominy, not to mention the emotional pain, of being dumped by his wife.

After only the second performance, in Chicago, Page is taken sick with what Jack Calmes describes as the “rockin’ pneumonia”. Calmes is head of Showco, the company that provided lights, sound, staging and logistics for the tour.

“There was an extraordinary amount of tension at the start of that ’77 tour,” Calmes recalled. “It just got off to a negative start. It was definitely much darker than any Zeppelin tour ever before that time [Calmes was involved in the 1973 and 1975 tours]. Zeppelin still had their moments of greatness, but some of the shows were grinding and not very inspired.”

Indeed, on the four or five performances I saw, the band felt as if they were merely playing by numbers. Although there was no opening act, and Zeppelin often played for more than three hours, the music seemed to have no life, no emotion. Many of the audiences grew unruly during the marathon performances, throwing firecrackers and various other objects at the stage; I saw more than one security man grab an offender and muscle them outside.

Gary Carnes, Showco’s lighting chief, had a bird’s eye view of every show. Sitting on stage about 10 feet in front of Page, he heard conversations, sotto voce, between the guitarist and singer.

“Quite often Robert would announce a song and Jimmy would go: ‘Robert, how does that song go?’ And Robert would sort of turn around and hum it to him. And Jimmy would go: ‘Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got it, I got it.’ Or Robert would announce a song and Jimmy would go into the wrong song. The times when Jimmy couldn’t remember how a song went were very, very rare, but it did happen.”

Besides these problems inside the arenas, there were almost nightly rituals of crazed Zeppelin fans outside engaging in minor scuffles with local police. Prior to the St Louis show, I witnessed ardent but non-ticketed fans attempting to break through barricades. Roaming packs of hard-core Zep devotees threw beer cans and engaged in low-key mayhem. 

During one arrival, Peter Grant emerged from his limo and walked over to a group of policemen holding at bay a crowd of rowdy would-be gatecrashers. Though I couldn’t hear specifically what the burly manager was saying, his actions were startlingly clear. He pointed to several of his own security crew and motioned them in the direction of the battling cops. Grant made certain no one entered the concert without a ticket.

Peter Grant, former bouncer and wrestler, was, in many respects, the physical embodiment of a lead zeppelin. Standing over six feet tall and weighing over 300 pounds, he used his intimidating presence to maintain order and keep his charges safe and worry-free. He was highly protective, and by ’77 insanely so. He isolated the band members as much as possible – hence the private plane and the ritualised hierarchy of security, handlers and crew. 

He brooked no insubordination from his own people, and with outsiders his brand of justice was swift. His raison d’être was simple: to protect his band and their finances. When a bootlegger or unauthorised photographer was identified, it was a lucky offender who was let off with merely a severe verbal reprimand and confiscation of unauthorised merchandise or film. I never saw an incident escalate beyond that, but I was told about one.

“I took the plans and everything over to the band in England before this tour happened,” Showco’s president, Jack Calmes, recalls. “They had their offices on King’s Road and spent most of the time down the street in the pub. But we had a big meeting upstairs in Peter Grant’s office and they said: ‘Okay, Calmes [purposely mispronouncing his name as Calm-us, instead of the correct Cal- mees], what have you got for this tour?’ 

So I stood up and gave my presentation, and showed them all these cool lighting effects and lasers, and said the price will be $17,500 per show. The whole room went dead silent. They looked at the window, and Bonham went over and raised the window – like they were going to throw me out of it. And they might have done it. Then after this drama went on for what seemed like a long time, they all just started laughing, because I’m sure I looked like I was about to shit my pants.”

Zeppelin humour. Well, no one was laughing when John Paul Jones confiscated my tapes. I can understand Calmes’s apprehension because that flight back to Chicago seemed interminable.

On arrival, we returned to the Ambassador East, and I packed my bags for an early-morning flight back to Los Angeles. Menacing scowls from bouncers had told me I was no longer welcome, and I made a hasty exit.

Janine Safer, the group’s publicist, had encouraged me to go and talk to John Paul, to try to explain my side of the story. I went down to his hotel suite, knocked on the door, and as it swung open my mind went blank, and I stood there, once again, like an idiot. As a failsafe, I had written him a letter. I handed it to him. He took it, and shocked me by returning my tapes. He told me he thought I was a low-life piece of shit and that I was the worst writer he’d ever read, but that I did have a responsibility to the magazine.

My Led Zeppelin story appeared in the July 1977 issue of Guitar Player . One evening, about a month after the Zeppelin road trip, I’m at the Starwood club in West Hollywood. I’m sitting with my brother, Mick, watching Detective, the band Swan Song were signing to the label. 

Mick tells me John Paul Jones is in the corner and he’s walking this way. I’d told him about the encounter, so I figure he’s just goofing with me. Then I turn around and see Jonesy standing in front of me. I expect some sort of abuse. Instead he extends his hand in friendship. He had read my letter and understood that what I’d written in that Jeff Beck story had come from an inexperienced journalist. He loved the story.

After playing LA, Zeppelin flew to Oakland, North California, for the final dates of the tour. And what happened there breathed new life into the legend of the Led Zeppelin curse. It was a terrible way to finish.

“I was standing right by the trailer when all this went down,” recalls Jack Calmes. “Peter Grant’s kid [Warren] was there, and he walked into a secure area and one of Bill Graham [the promoter]’s guards moved him aside; he didn’t hurt him or anything. The Bindon brothers [John Bindon was a British thief and thug turned actor and security man] and Peter grabbed this guy, took him into one of the trailers, and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t in the trailer but I was right outside. This guy [Jim Matzorkis] was a pretty tough guy, and they were taking him apart in there.

“The Bindon brothers were thugs who were friends of Peter Grant’s and were on this whole tour as security guards. And they brought an element of darkness into this thing. The only thing I remember about John Bindon is that we were in The Roxy [in Los Angeles, prior to the Oakland shows] and he was in the back corner with Zeppelin, and he had his dick out, swinging it for a crowd of about 50 people that could see it [Bindon was famously well-endowed]. And John Bindon later stabbed this guy through the heart [he was acquitted of murder in ’79]; it sounds like something out of a blues song.”

Tour manager Richard Cole, another principal, takes up the story: “When the band came off the stage, Peter went after the guy with Johnny Bindon. I was outside the caravan with an iron bar, making sure no one could get in and get hold of them, because people were after Granty and Bindon then.

“The next day, the four of us got arrested. Fortunately, one of our security guys knew one of the guys on the SWAT. team, and said to them: ‘These guys aren’t dangerous, I’ve worked for them for years.’ So they asked Peter, John Bindon and John Bonham and myself to meet them. They handcuffed us, took us off to jail, and then they let us out after an hour or so and off we went.”

And if the saga of Led Zeppelin was being played out like an unfinished blues song, this wasn’t the final verse. The ’77 tour had taken a terrible toll on everyone – after Oakland, the band members separated: John Paul remained in California; Jimmy and Peter stayed in San Francisco; Bonham, Cole and Plant headed to New Orleans. Within hours of arriving at the Royal Orleans hotel, Robert received a call from his wife. The last verse was being written.

“The first phone call said his six-year-old son [Karac] was sick,” describes Cole. “The second phone call… Unfortunately Karac had died in that time.”

The song would never again remain the same. In 1979 Zeppelin played some warm-up dates at Denmark’s Falkonerteatret, and in August the two landmark UK shows at Knebworth. About a year later, on September 25, 1980, John Bonham was found dead.

“I will never forget the final words I heard Robert Plant say,” lighting director Gary Carnes sums up. “It would be my final show with them – my 59th. I was on stage at the second show at Knebworth. The band had just finished playing Stairway To Heaven . Robert stood there just looking out over a sea of screaming fans with cigarette lighters. It was a magical, mystical moment. He then walked to the edge of the stage with the microphone, and again just stood there looking. And then he said: ‘It is very, very hard to say… goodnight.’ It was an enchanting thing to witness. I will never forget that moment.”

In November 1979, writer Chris Salewicz wondered whether Led Zep had any relevance in a world changed by punk rock.

Of all the old superfart bands, it is certainly Led Zeppelin who have been and still are the most reviled by the new wave.

Whatever jerk-off socialite absurdities Jagger may have got himself into, the Rolling Stones have at least always had a prime punk archetype in Keith Richards. The Who have the ever-perceptive Townshend, a man who appears to have gone through something of a personal rejuvenation that seems to be a direct result of his encounters with punk.

For whatever reasons, though, the manner in which Led Zeppelin have consistently presented themselves has made the band’s name synonymous with gratuitious excess.

Even though he seems to consider Dire Straits a new-wave band, Page is perfectly aware that there are punk bands and punk bands who aren’t really punk bands. He has heard The Clash and rather likes them. He warms very much to the mention of Ian Dury. “Yeah, he really imparts such a great feeling, doesn’t he? Makes you feel so good. That was certainly the first thing that struck me about new wave music – that it was sheer adrenalin pouring out. Real energy just tearing to get out.”

But how did the beat group Led Zeppelin relate to it? “We were aware of it,” he nods. “Bands like us and – I hate to say it but… the Floyd… we’re off in our own little bits. It’s always open for anybody who’s really raw and earthy and who makes sheer rock‘n’roll music…”

Of all the old fart bands certainly Led Zep, for whatever reasons, are the most loathed…

“Really?!” Jimmy Page sounds quite startled.

’Fraid so… “We-e-elll…“ he pauses for several moments, “…people write to us, you know, and a lot of younger people who I’d never have expected to have got into us have said that they got fired up by the energy of new wave bands but they got interested in the actual musical content and wanted to go one step further, which is how they discovered bands like us…”

Didn’t you ever worry, though, over the past months while you were making the new record and planning Knebworth that it might be like throwing a party for which no one turns up?

“Yeah,” he laughs, “but no – because when we’d finished our album I knew at the time that it didn’t matter if it didn’t come out for nine months, because I knew that I could rely on the fact that Led Zeppelin hadn’t dated – the actual identity of the band is still there. There’s a fresh approach which can still give it an edge.

“We’re not sounding complacent, I hope. There’s a lot of hard work still to come, obviously. It’s not like we’ve felt we had to change the music to relate to any of the developments that’ve been going on. There are no tracks with disco beats or anything.

“Like I say, it’s not a new musical form but there is still something very fresh about it.”

What exactly were Robert Plant and Jimmy Page doing on their flight-by-night trip to Bombay in the early 70s? Click on the link below to find out more.

Led Zeppelin in India: the true story behind the secret Bombay sessions

Steven Rosen has been writing about the denizens of rock 'n' roll for the past 25 years. During this period, his work has appeared in dozens of publications including Guitar Player, Guitar World, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Creem, Circus, Musician, and a host of others.

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By ms_zeppelin94 March 1, 2009 in Led Zeppelin Live

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Ms_zeppelin94.

The majority of merchandise (tees, posters, etc.) has "US Tour 77" on it. Why? What was so important about the 77 tour?

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jimmy page66

The majority of merchandise (tees, posters, etc.) has "US Tour 77" on it. Why? What was so important about the 77 tour? Thanx for any info!!

MisterMcLov1n

Its the best, that's why, Duh. :slapface: :slapface: :slapface: :slapface:

The biggest, not the best.

The 1977 Tour of the United States set a precedent for all big rock tours to come afterward.

ZeppFanForever

How's it going "ms_zeppelin94" as well as our fellow die hard hard core ZEPPELIN fanatics? There are many reasons why the 1977 Tour was important but I'll name a few. The first reason is because the 1977 Tour was the mighty LED ZEPPELIN'S BIGGEST Tour to date. The second reason is because it was ZEPPELIN"S first Tour since the 1975 Tour. The third reason is because it was time for ZEPPELIN to perform new songs live on the 1977 Tour from the band's most recent 1976 album "PRESENCE." The Fourth reason is because ZEPPELIN (Healthwise) had something to prove with Robert Plant coming off that almost fatal car crash involving his wife Maureen and Pagey's daughter Scarlet. Robert Plant was not 100% healthy meaning that he had not fully recovered from the injuries he sustained from the car accident by the time the 1977 Tour began. If you see the Seattle Kingdome performance from 17 July 1977 on DVD, you will notice that Robert still had a limp. I even noticed the limp Robert had from both shows that I saw in person at The Forum in L.A. on 23 June 1977 and one month later at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California on 23 July 1977. These are only some of many reasons why. I feel confident that many of our fellow ZEPPELIN fanatics will have other reasons. ROCK ON!

It was sort of like a second US 73' tour if you view it that way, just that it took something massive and made it even more, there were darker vibes in this tour too, also the light show took a turn an it was made that much sicker, with lasers and smoke, hundreds of lights and incredible stage moves.

It was also a great opportunity to see Zeppelin, about 50% of the people who saw it on this board saw them that year, they where about the biggest band in the world and the eager frenzy and anticipation in the concerts was beyond amazing, they sold out every single arena/stadium they where at, set new attendance records and, whilst most performances are rather poor compared to other years, they gave a few incredible & legendary performances.

All together, it was probably the band's most iconic tour, a tour that would be remembered by double neck guitars, white dragon suits and a technically peaking Bonham.

cookieshoes

Because by 1977 the band had evolved into super-mega-stars. Selling out 6 nights at both the Forum in LA and Madison Square Garden in NY and all of those attendance records everywhere else, etc.

The tours from 1968-1972 had the band basically doing their own thing. Selling out and playing marathons, but not really doing much promotion and merchandise wise. By 1973, they shifted to a more publicity-oriented approach: Publicists, personal assistants, private planes, bigger money and crowds. 1975 repeated that formula even moreso. So by 1977, they were veteran mainstays that had a huge legacy behind them. They had already done it that way the last two tours, so they upped the game considerably.

The merchandise represents that. A huge well-marketed music machine. Keep in mind that the 1977 was the longest consecutive tour that they ever did. To the most people as well.

It was Led Zeppelin's first shows after a 2 year break because of Robert's Plant injury. But it ended up being their longest consecutive tour as others have said, and it had some of their longest shows. The term "3 Hours of Lunacy" came from shows on this tour. It was really Led Zeppelin's last major tour.

Not really...it was, definitively ....

Otto Masson

So is the 1980 tour not real because it took place in Europe and not the U.S.? Or not big enough - if so, then what is big enough?

It was over-all a terrible selection gigs. with hardly any people attending.

But it WAS a tour. And it was high time they toured Europe, because, aside from Brussels and Rotterdam in '75 and Copenhagen in '79, they hadn't since 1973. Sheer size, as 1977 should tell us, also isn't everything.

Because it was the nicest tour T - simple as that.

Agreed. The Swan Song logo, classic lettering, etc.

I'm not a huge fan of the 77 tour as far as how the band played overall. Robert's vocals were back to near what they were in the early 70s though. Jimmy's playing was really sloppy compared to any tour and drugs were really effecting how the band was playing. But the hype surrounding the tour is really what made it big.

most of the time the audiences are getting fucked one way or another (let's own up, shall we?), if not by ridiculously high ticket prices then by shoddy performances (especially when it comes to classic rockers past their prime...yeah, Stones, I'm talking to YOU! ).

I saw the Stones do really red-hot shows way into the 80s, and although I haven't seen them live since then, Shine a Light convinces me they can still get it done now!

Sorry to thread-jack.

1980 was a short jaunt compared to the sheer length of 1977...and the (deliberately) scaled-down set gave it more the feeling (at least to me) of a warm-up for the impending 1980 US Tour Peter Grant had been planning all along (but not telling Robert about until after)...

I don't get what you say, unless it was before or shortly after the European tour, tickets where already sold, and there are many 80' US tour T-Shirts around.

The 1980 US Tour was to start in late October 1980. From everything I've read over the years, Plant had flat out said NO to going back to the USA, but he agreed to the 1980 Euro tour. When that tour ended (early July 1980) Grant was able to convince Plant to do it, and THEN began planning the tour, getting tickets printed, t-shirts, etc...Bonzo didn't die until the end of Sept 1980...

Performance speaks louder than merchandizing. For the 1977 tour, merchandizing was SCREAMING! I prefer what goes in my ears versus what I cover my torso with. I'll leave it at that.

I don't really know what they sounded like overall (I've just seen a few bootleg videos)on the 77 tour. But I am pretty sure that, as others have said, drugs were interfering by 77 and their performance suffered. Really, 77 is probably not my favorite tour.

So, back to the merchandizing thing...I see a Zeppelin shirt, I buy. Most of my shirts do have something about the 77 tour on them, but frankly, I couldn't care less. For all it's worth, I'd like to have something from a earlier tour, because that's what made me fall in love with Zeppelin.

I've got four words for you: Listen To This, Eddie. Prepare to be converted.

Here's another four words: For Badge Holders Only.

Best "No Quarter" ever.

Yes, Page was a mess in 1977. And Plant was no longer singing like he did in 1971.

But, for what they were still capable of, the LA shows were the best.

The real creative "LIVE" band Zeppelin was died after 72 I think. And it was because Jimmy couldn't or for the most part wouldn't play with the same authority that he had in the early day's of the band. His tone suffered too much for me after 73. They were still great, but I think all the creating they did on stage was on it's way out. they were still doing cool stuff on stage but it was different than what they originally started out as. I used to think the 77 tour was the one I would like the band to release a live CD of, but I think something from 68 or 69 would be what they really were about. Kind of like the stuff on the DVD from Albert Hall 70. Bring It On Home & How Many More Times are just killer on that show !! That is Jimmy at his best with Robert right in his pocket !!!!! They had great show's their whole career but the first 5 year's were their best on a stage. I did just pick up a show from 75 and it is great stuff !! From St. Louis.

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Team of researchers seeking footage of Led Zeppelin's last Utah performance in 1973

By mary culbertson, ksl-tv | posted - april 29, 2024 at 9:42 p.m..

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SALT LAKE CITY — An international team of journalists is summoning the people of Salt Lake City to help them in their search for video or images of Led Zeppelin's last performance in Utah in 1973.

On May 26, 1973, the Salt Palace Convention Center was packed with 11,000 fans, according to independent music writer David Proctor. He wrote that the sold-out show in Salt Lake City was part of a $3 million U.S. tour, and it was "probably" the smallest crowd they'd see.

"But it didn't seem to affect Zeppelin in the least. In fact, they seemed to enjoy the audience contact — something you don't encounter before 58,000 people in a baseball stadium," he wrote, before detailing the stage's impressive sound and lighting capabilities — for the time.

Proctor detailed a 20-minute showcase at the end of his review, where he said the song "Dazed and Confused" was stretched out "for Jimmy Page and the special effects staff."

"Using a violin bow on his guitar and a delayed-echo effects system, Page had the sound bouncing from one side of the stage to the other," he wrote.

The Salt Lake Tribune also covered the event , but mostly focused on the containment of the crowd. Staff writer Brian Nutting wrote that the event was a test for new security arrangements because the Salt Lake City police chief at the time said conduct at rock concerts had gotten "completely out of hand."

Ahead of the show's 51st anniversary, James Cook and Eric Levy are searching for people who were at the concert, or perhaps have a family member or friend who photographed the band on stage.

Cook is a U.K.-based journalist who runs a Led Zeppelin news site that he said has more than five million views. His partner, Levy, is a researcher in the U.S. who runs a YouTube channel that has also racked up sizeable views. The two of them work to collect hours of video and hundreds of photos for super fans to enjoy.

"We're pretty confident that someone took photos but none have ever become public," Cook said.

He said that an audio recording that was made by a fan at the show exists on YouTube, but in over 50 years, no photos or videos have surfaced.

Cook said anyone with information can contact them at [email protected].

"We're just letting people know," Cook said, "'Hey this is a really significant thing if you've got it.'"

Contributing : Garna Mejia

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Led Zeppelin - 1977 USA Tour Programme