Jump to content

Zeppelin's Biggest Crowd


mightyzep247

Recommended Posts

"I had the arena photographed from a helicopter the first week and sent the pictures to NASA to be analyzed. There were 210,000 people in there give or take two percent, they

told us...I think we had 180,000 the second week. We had the aerial shot hanging in the

(Swan Song) office". -- Peter Grant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
The largest aside from festivals was The Pontiac Silverdome 5/26/77 with 76,000+ people which was for a time the highest attendence record for a single act.

Correct, except the date. It was 76,229 people attending their Pontiac Silverdome concert on 4/30/77 It was, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest attendance to date for a single act show (that record has since been surpassed

many times).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"I had the arena photographed from a helicopter the first week and sent the pictures to NASA to be analyzed. There were 210,000 people in there give or take two percent, they

told us...I think we had 180,000 the second week. We had the aerial shot hanging in the

(Swan Song) office". -- Peter Grant

Yet according to that Mick Wall book, the promoter of Knobworth claims there was only 105,000 for the first concert and 40,000 for the second...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet according to that Mick Wall book, the promoter of Knobworth claims there was only 105,000 for the first concert and 40,000 for the second...

Yes, Mick Wall's book does take the promotors side to this as gospel and doubts Page and Grant's version. I can believe that Grant getting NASA to do ariel shots was just a "story" that would look good in print but I think the true figure was somewhere between the two. Remember, Bannister had "issues" with Zeppelin.

Wall's book reckons Zeppelin wasn't even the biggest Knebworth in terms of attendance yet the family that own Knebworth ( Lytton-Cobbold ? ) published their own book a few years ago and they state in that that the Zeppelin Knebworth attracted the biggest attendence.

I also remember at the time it was published in the press that the "police estimate" was quoted at 140.000 for Knebworth 1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

my recollection of the press estimates of the crowd from the music paper -melody maker- for knebworth, were that they were 170,000 for the first show and 90,000 for the second. i remember they cited 90,000 for the second show as being much less attended than the first, in a way that suggested maybe they were maybe losing it, though it was mentioned that zeppelin were the first band to sell out two shows there

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, for the sole performance in a non festival setting, It's Pontiac and in a festival type setting you can take Knebworth, but some US summer 69 festivals and the Bath festival, could rival Mick Wall's published estimate from the promoters.

And here's the satellite pic:

http://www.oldbuckeye.com/Houses_of_the_Ho...es/image89.html

That is not a satellite pic ......picture taken from a helicopter more like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...