ZEPFAN17 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 The Led Zeppelin 1973 North American tour beganMay 4th and concluding onJuly 29th 1973 and The tour began just 4 weeks after touring the United Kingdom. Led Zeppelin was peaking during tiis tour.On May 5 at Tampa Stadium, Florida, they played to 56,800 fans (breaking the record set by The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965), and grossed $309,000. In total, this tour grossed over $4,000,000. This tour took place shortly after the release of Led Zeppelin's fifth album, Houses of the Holy, which topped the charts. Prior to its commencement, Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant also hired PR consultant Danny Goldberg to further promote the tour, and booked a number of large stadium venues.[1] As a result, this tour broke box office records across America.[2] On May 5 at Tampa Stadium, Florida, they played to 56,800 fans (breaking the record set by The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965), and grossed $309,000.[3][4] In total, this tour grossed over $4,000,000.[1] On-stage, Led Zeppelin's shows were developed further from those performed on previous tours, with the introduction of dry ice, laser effects, backdrop mirrors, hanging mirror balls and Catherine wheel pyrotechnics.[1][5] Their dress attire also took on a more flamboyant nature, evidenced in particular by guitarist Jimmy Page's hummingbird jacket and John Paul Jones' Spanish matador jacket.[1] This increase in on-stage theatricality was later referred to by Page during an interview he gave to rock journalist Mick Wall: Originally, we saw the whole essence of our live performance as something that the audience listened to very carefully, picking up on what was going on, the spontaneity and musicianship. And you can’t do that if you’re running around the stage all night, or at least we couldn’t back then.” By 1973, however, “we were much more ambitious, in that respect. We really wanted to take the live performances as far as they could go.[6] Zeppelin, 1973 The three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York which concluded the tour were filmed for a motion picture, but the theatrical release of this project (The Song Remains the Same) was delayed until 1976. The film documents the theft of $203,000 of the group's money from a safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel in New York, just before their final show.[5] The theft was discovered by Led Zeppelin tour manager Richard Cole, who was immediately interrogated by police as a suspect. The sum of money was the band's takings from their three New York concerts. It was never recovered and the identity of the thief or thieves has never been discovered.[7] The band later sued the Drake Hotel for the theft. It was also during this tour that Led Zeppelin hired for the first time The Starship - a former United Airlines Boeing 720B passenger jet. During the early part of the tour the band had hired a small private Falcon Jet to transport its members from city to city, but these aircraft are comparatively light and susceptible to air turbulence. After performing a show at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco on June 2,[ Led Zeppelin encountered bad turbulence on a flight back to Los Angeles. As a result, Grant resolved to hire The Starship for the remainder of the tour, at a cost of $30,000.The exterior of the plane was re-sprayed with Led Zeppelin emblazoned down the side of the fuselage and the band's famous Swan Song Apollo logo was painted on the tail. Flying on The Starship, Led Zeppelin were now no longer required to change hotels so often. They could base themselves in large cities and travel to and from concerts within flying distance.[10After each show, the band members would be transported direct by limousine from the concert venue to the airport, as depicted in the concert film, The Song Remains the Same. In an interview he gave to William S. Burroughs in 1975, Page commented on the exhausting nature of the 1973 tour: [W]e were playing [sets] for three hours solid, and physically that was a real...I mean, when I came back from the last tour I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know where I was going. We ended up in New York and the only thing that I could relate to was the instrument onstage. I just couldn't....I was just totally and completely spaced out.[12] In a much more recent interview, Page recalled: What I remember about that 1973 tour is that we arrived in America and we did 53,000 at Atlanta and then 55,000 at the following concert in Tampa, Florida — it was quite clear that if people were going to come along to see us in those kind of numbers we weren’t going to have problems doing concerts that would fulfil the demand. It was phenomenal though — the audience reaction was just so with us, y’know. Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant has also expressed his own recollections of the tour: I remember that tour rather like the lyrics to "The Battle of Evermore". A flash. Really fast. Lots of battles and conquests. And the din of the hordes. So much happened in such a short time. It was phenomenal The kind of speed we were moving at, the creative juices in the air, the whole thing was just an absolute mixture of adrenaline, chemical, euphoria ... and there were no brakes. We couldn't stop what was happening. We had no idea what it even was. But we just kept trying, pushing forward, every show. Tour dates Date City Country Venue 4 May 1973 Atlanta, Georgia United States Fulton County Stadium 5 May 1973 Tampa, Florida Tampa Stadium 7 May 1973 Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville Coliseum 10 May 1973 Tuscaloosa, Alabama Memorial Coliseum 11 May 1973 St. Louis, Missouri Kiel Auditorium 13 May 1973 Mobile, Alabama Municipal Auditorium 14 May 1973 New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans Municipal Auditorium 16 May 1973 Houston, Texas Sam Houston Coliseum 18 May 1973 Dallas, Texas Dallas Memorial Auditorium 19 May 1973 Fort Worth, Texas Tarrant Country Convention Center 22 May 1973 San Antonio, Texas Convention Center Arena 23 May 1973 Albuquerque, New Mexico University Arena 25 May 1973 Denver, Colorado Denver Coliseum 26 May 1973 Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Palace 28 May 1973 San Diego, California San Diego Sports Arena 31 May 1973 Inglewood, California The Forum 2 June 1973 San Francisco, California Kezar Stadium 3 June 1973 Inglewood, California The Forum 6 July 1973 Chicago, Illinois Chicago Stadium 7 July 1973 8 July 1973 Indianapolis, Indiana Market Square Arena 9 July 1973 Saint Paul, Minnesota St. Paul Civic Center 10 July 1973 Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee Arena 12 July 1973 Detroit, Michigan Cobo Hall 13 July 1973 15 July 1973 Buffalo, New York Buffalo Memorial Auditorium 17 July 1973 Seattle, Washington Seattle Center Coliseum 18 July 1973 Vancouver, British Columbia Canada Pacific Coliseum 19 July 1973 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States The Spectrum 20 July 1973 Boston, Massachusetts Boston Garden 21 July 1973 Providence, Rhode Island Providence Civic Center 23 July 1973 Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore Civic Center 24 July 1973 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Three Rivers Stadium 27 July 1973 New York City, New York Madison Square Garden The Song Remains the Same film and soundtrack album 28 July 1973 29 July 1973 Source Wikipedia. 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Led Dirigible Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 The purpose of this thread is.........? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEPFAN17 Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 It was a historic Led Zeppelin tour in 1973 covering 34 cities in 3 months time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledded1 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 It was a historic Led Zeppelin tour in 1973 covering 34 cities in 3 months time. US leg of course. I saw them here in the UK in Jan 73. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEPFAN17 Posted December 13, 2012 Author Share Posted December 13, 2012 As long as you saw them live it really doen't matter where! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Sombreo Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 There is a Zep thread for pretty much everything...so many of us who saw them in '73 care about the purpose of this thread. Move on if you don't like it...And my ticket for Zep in Tampa cost a Kings ransom of $5. NOTHING since then has come close to the show Zep put on for the money. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Led Dirigible Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 There is a Zep thread for pretty much everything...so many of us who saw them in '73 care about the purpose of this thread. Move on if you don't like it...And my ticket for Zep in Tampa cost a Kings ransom of $5. NOTHING since then has come close to the show Zep put on for the money. Jeff Sorry, I didn't mean to be negative. 1973 is one of my favorite tour years of Zeppelin's. I do come across as negative in my previous reply, and when I realized that, the edit button had disappeared. ZEPFAN17 didn't say what he wanted this thread to be, so I was confused as to what it's purpose was. I see now that ZEPFAN17 just wanted to discuss the 1973 tour. My apologies if I offended anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEPFAN17 Posted December 16, 2012 Author Share Posted December 16, 2012 Its cool.The 1973 North American tour was a big part of Led Zeppelins history.In the post Jimmy Page and Robert Plant discuss what was going on during the tour Madison Square Garden was the place to be in 1973 all 3 shows sold out on minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe (Liverpool) Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 My ticket for the Liverpool concert in 1973 cost £1.25 !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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