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From American Airlines inflight magazine June 2016 - How on earth can they get this wrong? I get it that Led Zeppelin and John's passing was a generation ago, but come on people!

 

Sorry about the sideways post - stupid iPhone - looks normal till it goes "live" I did tweet American Airlines I'll let you know if I get a response #factcheckfail.

 

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#factcheckfail!

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49 minutes ago, sam_webmaster said:

Oakland 1970 - Planned closed-circuit TV / large screens... If only....

1970-09-oakland-tv-screens_lzcom.jpg

Very interesting. I wonder if this was ever done at Oakland Coliseum as early as 1970 for other acts? Bill Graham Presents must have been involved in this. 

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Interesting review and rare backstage interview, from Dallas, August 4, 1969. that I added to the timeline.
http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/august-4-1969

1969-08-04-dallas-review-interview_lzcom

Transcription:

Dallas Crowd Overwhelms Members of British Band

Led Zeppelin pulled off one of the most surprising shows in a long time Monday night at the Texas State Fair Coliseum. And despite the heat and the sound system that was unreal, the crowd gave this English band four ovations before their set was over and one more to bring an encore that was completely unexpected.

Dazed & Confused brought the crowd into complete rapport with the group, even though the acoustics just about ruined the first two songs. Robert Plant, lead singer took the trouble in stride and joked with the audience while the equipment managers frantically tried to fix the amps. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the sound was fairly in control for the rest of the evening.

Jimmy Page’s White Summer was THE song of the evening. Talking to him later, he explained why it was never put on the first album or the second one scheduled for release in late August. “The song is really something that you don’t do the same way twice. On stage, it was strictly improvised. I played what I wanted to and really don’t think it belongs on an album.”

Robert Plant was not as quite effective in his singing due to the distortion. And he is not another Jim Morrison as was predicted, according to bassist John Paul Jones. “Robert doesn’t try to be like anyone. Robert Plant is Robert Plant,” he said.

They were very impressed by the crowd and its response throughout the show. “The audience was really fantastic,” Jimmy grinned. “The four standing ovations were also fantastic”.

Plant was also impressed with the Dallas reception. “This is out second tour, but first time in Dallas. Houston was really responsive to us but this audience was great. We have been getting this type of reaction since we’re been on tour”, he continued. “In Boston, we played at the Tea Party (a well-known New England club) and stayed on for three hours. We will stay on as long as the audience wants us. If there are at least 100 people and they ask for an encore, we’ll give them one.”

Page full agreed with Plant. “There are some groups that will do a 40 minute set and that’s it. They just won’t come back no matter how the audience reacts. I can’t believe that”.

Drummer John Bonham was impressed with the freedom American musicians have, compared with what British bands do and sing. “There are a lot of reasons Americans have this freedom,” he remarked. “The big one is probably just about anyone can get on record over here. Companies will take just about anyone, where in England you have to be pretty good before anyone will even listen to you.”

The next stop on the long one-night-stand tour was LA. Plant stressed that the group WILL be back for the Texas Pop Festival. [-Jayne Ferguson, 8/69]

-------------------

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Ad for Oct 18th, 68 gig at the Marquee billed as "The Yardbirds". Note the "Old Friends in October" section where they are called "The New Yardbirds" and the group members are listed.

a1968_10.jpg

 

 

Edited by thozil
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8 hours ago, thozil said:

Ad for Oct 18th, 68 gig at the Marquee billed as "The Yardbirds". Note the "Old Friends in October" section where they are called "The New Yardbirds" and the group members are listed.

a1968_10.jpg

 

 

I think this billing (The New Yardbirds) is consistent with what I've seen called "the Marquee mailer" distributed previously. It is interesting to note, however, that as far as the venue was concerned they were still The New Yardbirds as late as October. I've seen it alleged that it was in October that Dreja filed a cease and desist order regarding use of the name. We know that Jimmy met with George Hardie at the venue the day of the gig and explained to him his concept for the first album cover, leaving no doubt that as far as Jimmy Page was concerned the name either had or was soon going to change.

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Austin Municipal Auditorium - August 14, 1969

1969-08-austin-review-lzcom.jpg

Transcription:

Lightning Blues – Led Zeppelin Outwail Joplin

The roof is still on Municipal Auditorium… I think. When part of a usually conservative local audience moved down into the aisles Thursday night for a closer look at Led Zeppelin, I wondered. It might have been the irony of Communication Breakdown or the musicians’ controlled frenzy that gave the happening its love-in  atmosphere.

But the rock-soul  Zeppelin could have led the audience like lemmings into the ocean. Applause resounded for a virtuoso guitarist and a Joplinesque  lead singer.

Wide eyes gleamed, people swayed. They filled in those cement gaps between the seat sections. Suddenly, it seemed like we were all huddled close together on a hillside watching a pop festival. Naturalness and pleasantness prevailed.

Seldom do rock musicians let loose in every direction while maintaining undisputed authority over their vibrations. Their playing was relaxed, yet wild – a carefully executed, most exacting frenzy. Rising, falling, the four Englishmen were a threat of violence at every measure. Rarely heard vibrations, uncommonly original musicianship came in pulsating waves rather than freak strays.

Former Yardbird Jimmy Page (lead guitar) held his group together. A virtuoso himself, he yielded part of the spotlight to newcomer Robert Plant.

In Plant, Janis Joplin has found a male counterpart with twice the voltage. He sings like every cell in his slim body is crying to fly out and dissolve him into the atmosphere.

Gut-stirring soul, Charisma and something more. Most of that applause meant respect. At a rock concert? Yes. Anytime an ‘artist’ turns himself inside out for a performance. Plant poured all his energy into singing – enjoying, feeling a minute’s worth into each second. He even whipped across the stage swaying with the music.

That Hendrix art of matching whining vocal with guitar added depth to an already memorable performance. For the electric soul of Dazed & Confused, Page eased and banged a violin bow across his guitar strings, producing some of the most dynamic wave frequencies imaginable. Sounding like a berserk computer, Page played his new instrument as if a guitar naturally belonged with a violin bow.

‘White Summer’ spotlighted Page. It’s a guitar ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ with contrasting slow-fast-slow movements to tax any excellent musician and showcase a superior one like Page.

You got the feeling you really had when Plant ground up You Shook Me. He broke through the Joplin caricature with his dynamic style. Slow, childlike echoes of “Mama, mama”, softened rasping ceiling breakers at unexpected points.

Then supposedly their last song, a fast driving scream featuring the drummer playing with his hands and a gong. The crowd wouldn’t let go of this originality. As an encore, Communication Breakdown was anything but a breakdown. Few would have disputed a claim that Led Zeppelin was plugged into the same sockets as their instruments. Or that Led Zeppelin is one of the most exciting groups of this or any year.  [C.Wynne / August 1969]

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/august-14-1969

 

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New York, Madison Square Garden, July 27, 1973 Review

Playboy Magazine (1973)

Playboy Magazine - Led Zeppelin has taken its share of shit from the rock press. It was put down in 1969 for being yet another British group blasting out blues past the threshold of pain; and just lately, in an album review that found it too quietly ethereal, Rolling Stone renamed it the Limp Blimp.

But on this Friday night, the Garden's packed and the energy is climbing visibly, in the shape of a sweet-pot cloud swell­ing like a summer nimbus above the crowd: long-hairs in Levis and loose-haltered ladies out front, painted and sculptured groupies of various genders backstage, everybody peaking toward the event: Led Zeppelin’s final stop on a three-month tour that had been building all along toward this last set of gigs in New York-which is, after all, Judgment Central. The Zep had been flashing around the country in a Big Bunny-style jet with fur bedrooms and a brass-railed bar, and the press was eating that up. and so far they'd played to more than half a million people-in­cluding a gig in Tampa that broke a hallowed old Beatles record for Most Bodies Gathered and Bucks Made at a Single Rock Perform­ance-so this is the end of the hottest tour yet.

And they come out blazing: kick right into Rock and Roll, Robert Plant, shaking his tight-denimed ass and  marcelled-wheat mane all over the stage, at­tacking the vocals .. . "It's been a long time since I've rock 'n' rolled!" ... while Jimmy Page, looking like an angel with bad things on his mind, bends toward the red guitar slung gun­fighter-low over his black-velvet space-­cowboy suit-which shines with deco stars and moon slivers-tearing off licks and chops like bouquets of white sparks. At the last note of Rock and Roll they shift too fast for applause into Celebration Day and then tie that tight to Black Dog, Plant wailing high over one of Page's low-down riffs,  while shifting spotlights in smooth choreography color every moan and grind, "Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove"- and you know that these boys are not fucking around.

They put out for nearly three hours without a break. And they have technology and staging down. On No Quarter, from the new album, John Paul Jones moves from bass to synthesized piano (one of three keyboards he uses, including a mellotron, which simulates an orchestra the size of Detroit) and, as a saffron spot picks him out of the blackness, Plant's voice, squeezed through some sort of sound compressor, gets the same weird underwater effect that's on the album, while dry-ice smoke rolls eerily across the stage like thick ground fog. Then, after The Song Remains the Same and The Rain Song comes Page's tour de force ­ Dazed and Confused. The smoke billows up again, with patterned slides projected through it, leaving disembodied shapes to hover in the haze, and Page takes on his guitar with a violin bow, soon shredded as he teases and slams it against the metal strings, virtuoso cosmic electronic riffs. with Plant scat-singing along in lingering echo-amazing sound hut not precisely music-until Page gets back to his incredible fingers toward the end. It's Plant's turn next, the first soft notes of Stairway to Heaven sending a tangible rush through the crowd, they're that tuned in, and then drummer .John Bonham comes up to bat with a 20­minute solo called Moby Dick. It's an  excursion we don't usually get off on, but Bonham (who wears sneakers for traction) works so hard and well that he gets you into it: The crowd whistled and yelped him the whole way.

And out, naturally, with that old monster, Whole Lotta Love. Even though Page space-warps the middle on a sonic-feedback gadget called a theremin-more of that love for sound qua sound that musicians develop and the rest of us have to put up with-it's the sort of fine mean rock that tells you what the real stuff is. The four Zeps may be experimenting in directions some of us could live without, but they're serious about what they're up to, and when they decide to play rock 'n' roll, it doesn't get any better. The blimp's a long way from limp.  [Playboy magazine, 1973]

------

73-playboy-ny7-27-73-review.jpg

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/july-27-1973

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New York 6-13-77 review

ny61377-review.jpg

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/june-13-1977

 

Led Zeppelin’s Garden Party

They were all along. Led Zeppelin, but they weren’t due to go on display until 8 pm. At 7:50, on the next – to –last night of the band’s ’77 tour (1st leg), Pennsylvania Plaza was covered with the young and the stoned.  Jimmy Page and Robert Plant sat conversing in that timeless no-place which is the haven of the stars, but their fans outside were very much in evidence. The cabbies may still be talking about it.

Several escalators later, the concessionaires were taking about it too. They insisted as they poured beer and Pepsi that Madison Square Garden had never hosted a crowd like this one. Who is this Led Zeppelin, they seemed to say, and why are they bothering us?

Down in the arena, it was after eight and the crowd knew it. There was wild cheering after every song on the public address system and waving of flags and banners. Jimmy Page would not actually spin out the opening chords of the Song Remains the Same until nearly nine, but the massive garden was already alive with a frenzy it would not lose until after midnight.

Behind the barriers, the security men were leaning against the stage with a grim look. They were protecting a somewhat abbreviated version of previous Zeppelin setups, with a smaller, hanging sound system reminiscent of the Stone’s last tour, but they were also protecting the world’s most popular rock band – no easy chore.

The word continued to spread that Zeppelin was coming on and the dim overhead lights continued to stay lit. No amount of crowd frenzy seemed able to coax the band out, until suddenly the darkness shot out from the stage and they were there. Page’s guitar interrupted the screaming immediately and left it meaningless.

After three quick songs from Led Zeppelin’s more recent albums, including  a tasteful Plant harmonica solo, the band slid into Over the Hills and Far Away… with a guitar burst from Page that left the crowd stunned. Zeppelin had now built a momentum and they were content to cruise with it while slowly exposing their more sedate talents. For all concerned, it was to be a long evening.

“Has anyone ever heard of the blues?”, asked Plant. The answer to this poignant query was Since I’ve Been Loving You, a slow but powerful number which again found Page in fiery form. This was one of several arrangements during the evening to differ radically from the album cut; a grizzled veteran in the front row would later be heard to remark that it was even “different from Tuesday and Wednesday night.” That Page can jam a little…

No Quarter has been a centerpiece for the keyboard talents of John Paul Jones on the past two Zep tours, so it was no surprise to hear the familiar organ chords oozing out from Jones’ synthesizer post on stage left. What was surprising, however, was the freshness and vigor Jones brought to a very old assignment. His synthesized piano solo and a few laser lights solicited inhibited crowd approval and Page’s reappearance to weave his guitar sorcery turned the moment to magic. It may well have been the high point.

Ten Years Gone, the song about the first love “you never should have lost…” did nothing to break the spell. The album version features no less than nine guitar harmonies, and Page once said the band should be congratulated on this tour for even attempting it. But with a triple-neck guitar in hand, there was no doubt that the attempt was a successful one. The rather gentle song (as Zep songs go) paved the way…  

[To be continued]

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On 7/29/2016 at 11:08 AM, sam_webmaster said:

New York 6-13-77 review

ny61377-review.jpg

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/june-13-1977

 

Led Zeppelin’s Garden Party

They were all along. Led Zeppelin, but they weren’t due to go on display until 8 pm. At 7:50, on the next – to –last night of the band’s ’77 tour (1st leg), Pennsylvania Plaza was covered with the young and the stoned.  Jimmy Page and Robert Plant sat conversing in that timeless no-place which is the haven of the stars, but their fans outside were very much in evidence. The cabbies may still be talking about it.

Several escalators later, the concessionaires were taking about it too. They insisted as they poured beer and Pepsi that Madison Square Garden had never hosted a crowd like this one. Who is this Led Zeppelin, they seemed to say, and why are they bothering us?

Down in the arena, it was after eight and the crowd knew it. There was wild cheering after every song on the public address system and waving of flags and banners. Jimmy Page would not actually spin out the opening chords of the Song Remains the Same until nearly nine, but the massive garden was already alive with a frenzy it would not lose until after midnight.

Behind the barriers, the security men were leaning against the stage with a grim look. They were protecting a somewhat abbreviated version of previous Zeppelin setups, with a smaller, hanging sound system reminiscent of the Stone’s last tour, but they were also protecting the world’s most popular rock band – no easy chore.

The word continued to spread that Zeppelin was coming on and the dim overhead lights continued to stay lit. No amount of crowd frenzy seemed able to coax the band out, until suddenly the darkness shot out from the stage and they were there. Page’s guitar interrupted the screaming immediately and left it meaningless.

After three quick songs from Led Zeppelin’s more recent albums, including  a tasteful Plant harmonica solo, the band slid into Over the Hills and Far Away… with a guitar burst from Page that left the crowd stunned. Zeppelin had now built a momentum and they were content to cruise with it while slowly exposing their more sedate talents. For all concerned, it was to be a long evening.

“Has anyone ever heard of the blues?”, asked Plant. The answer to this poignant query was Since I’ve Been Loving You, a slow but powerful number which again found Page in fiery form. This was one of several arrangements during the evening to differ radically from the album cut; a grizzled veteran in the front row would later be heard to remark that it was even “different from Tuesday and Wednesday night.” That Page can jam a little…

No Quarter has been a centerpiece for the keyboard talents of John Paul Jones on the past two Zep tours, so it was no surprise to hear the familiar organ chords oozing out from Jones’ synthesizer post on stage left. What was surprising, however, was the freshness and vigor Jones brought to a very old assignment. His synthesized piano solo and a few laser lights solicited inhibited crowd approval and Page’s reappearance to weave his guitar sorcery turned the moment to magic. It may well have been the high point.

Ten Years Gone, the song about the first love “you never should have lost…” did nothing to break the spell. The album version features no less than nine guitar harmonies, and Page once said the band should be congratulated on this tour for even attempting it. But with a triple-neck guitar in hand, there was no doubt that the attempt was a successful one. The rather gentle song (as Zep songs go) paved the way…  

[To be continued]

....Thank you! thousand flowers blossom in heart of hearts!! 1.jpg

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Led Zeppelin’s Garden Party

NY 6-13-77 review, transcription continued:

 

...for a novel but effective acoustic set.

Coming almost exactly halfway through the performance, the acoustic set was Zeppelin’s surprising non-surprise. It was surprising because, aren’t these guys the terrible overlords of heavy metal? And yet not surprising because we had all been clued in to this unexpected turn of events. Such mellow classics as Battle of Evermore and Going to California found Page on a stool with a mandolin, while the rest of the band and various guitars lurked nearby. For Led Zeppelin, it opened gates that are apt in the future to release anything.

Kashmir brought the crowd back to rock reality, as the thunderous Zeppelin epic reverberated through the Garden. But it also introduced a John Bonham drum solo, geared with its smoke and moving drum stage to the young and easily impressionable. It is Led Zeppelin’s irrevocable policy to give each of the musicians their solo moment in the spotlight; Bonham’s moment however, may have gone one too long this night. The man’s talent is best displayed when he is riding herd over the whole Zeppelin sound, thunderously propelling Jones’ bass lines.

After an un-introduced, extended guitar solo by Jimmy Page… there was still time for Achilles Last Stand and Heartbreaker before the show melted into the only possible climax.

And for the umpteenth time, Stairway to Heaven knocked ‘em cold. Their ‘song of hope’ is a song that no Zep audience could leave without hearing, for everyone needs the kind of wishful wondering that Stairway has to offer. The crowd was spellbound and did not seem to notice, or care that Plant forgot several verses. The song was there, and that was more than enough. If Page unwittingly created a monster when he contrived those first compelling chords, he is keeping quiet about it. In New York, Stairway to Heaven spoke for itself.

There was an encore, of course, but the knowledge of the hated lights and the dreaded aftermath of dispelling tension gnawed at the back of the amps. It was not Zeppelin’s fault they threw everything they could into a rousing medley of Whole Lotta Love and Black Dog, everyone had to rest.

So when they grabbed their towels and took their bows, before turning an army of twenty-two thousand out into the streets, it was easy to see that it had been a long night, a long tour, and not very long at all since they had rock and rolled.

But the mystique will live on. They may still talk about it down on Fourteenth Street.

----------------

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/june-13-1977

 

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