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Lou Anne.

In this issue:

• Led Zeppelin: A No Show at Woodstock

Led Zeppelin: A No Show at Woodstock

In August 1969, Led Zeppelin was nearing the final part of the band’s wildly successful 3rd U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1969. That summer, Zeppelin had played at several open-aired rock festivals, jazz and rock festivals, as well as fairgrounds and agricultural venues throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Ever since Zeppelin’s formation a year earlier, in August 1968, the group had earned its reputation as one of rock music’s hottest acts. Led Zeppelin took off and was starting to soar. Everyone knew it in the summer of 1969, as the band toured.

Led Zeppelin opened this tour on July 5 at the Atlanta Pop Festival, Atlanta, Georgia. Here are a few other stops on that 3rd U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1969.

• Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island. July 6.
• Schaeffer Music Festival, Central Park, New York City, New York. July 21.
• Fairgrounds Arena, Santa Barbara, California. August 1.

The band was still playing selections from its debut album although these inaugural cuts from Led Zeppelin were so heavily improvised as to be barely recognizable.

Zeppelin opened these performances with the old Yarbirds favourite, Train Kept A Rollin’ but the band also debuted songs from Led Zeppelin II, which would be completed in August ’69. A good example is the first-ever public performance of What Is and What Should Never Be. Zeppelin played it on Thursday, August 21 at the Carousel Theatre in Framingham, Natick, Massachusetts.

Woodstock is one of the legendary festivals in rock’n’roll history. Some would say the greatest of all time. Led Zeppelin was quickly becoming one of the best rock bands in the world, right about the same time Woodstock took place. So why wasn’t Led Zeppelin there?

To find the answer, I turned to the published works of a few worldwide Led Zeppelin authorities: Robert Godwin, Dave Lewis and Simon Pallett. More on that in a minute.

The Woodstock Festival took place from Friday, August 15 through Monday, August 18, 1969. By that time, Led Zeppelin had almost thirty tour dates under its belt.

“We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” – of Woodstock...

The “rock festival” was born in the 1960s. Thousands upon thousands of music lovers, mostly Baby Boomers, would camp out and take in musical acts whose performances often spanned several days. These open-air festivals, which were not just artistic but social and cultural events, had to be meticulously planned. The logistics of supplying food, water, shelter, public facilities were considerable. Long delays would sometimes result from inclement weather.

In addition to Woodstock, other pioneering “Pop Festivals” from the late ‘60s included Monterey (1967), Miami (1968) and Atlanta (1969).

All were massive but Woodstock (variously known as “The Aquarian Exposition” and “The Woodstock Music and Art Fair”) is still considered the ultimate experience and the greatest rock festival in popular music history. November 1969 would bring the festivalphenomenon to a tragic close with Altamont - a free concert featuring The Rolling Stones where crowd violence erupted and ended in deaths.

The Woodstock Festival was held on a 600-acre farm owned by Max Yasgar, in Bethel Township, upstate New York. Over 100,000 tickets had been sold in advance but thousands more concert-goers came and entered without tickets. The designated campground area could accommodate up to 200,000 people but almost 500,000 turned up to take in the festival!

Woodstock opened on Friday, August 15 when New York artist, Richie Havens, took the stage at about 5pm. Popular acts of the day followed throughout the weekend: Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young among many others. Rain delayed the festival ’til Monday, when Jimi Hendrix went on stage at 8:30am to close it down.

The press hailed Woodstock as a triumph of the human spirit: three days of peace, love and music. Yet one of the newest rising stars of rock’n’roll wasn’t there. Why didn’t Led Zeppelin appear at Woodstock?

The band was quickly becoming a huge attraction on its 3rd U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1969. It had been a sensation ever since its North American debut on that First U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1968-’69. Audiences were blown away right from the start and continued to be on this third tour.

Sales of the debut album, Led Zeppelin, went gold (one million dollars in sales). The band was shattering concert attendance records at venues in Chicago and Cleveland on this tour. And there were 200,000 advance orders for the group’s upcoming yet-to-be-released second album, Led Zeppelin II.

Zeppelin’s manager, Peter Grant, always looked out for the band’s best interests. It was often said that he was like a fifth member.

From the band’s inception, Grant was meticulous about every detail, always ensuring Led Zeppelin’s position on the bill of a festival or live performance and doing whatever he could to achieve maximum exposure for his band of talented musicians.

If things couldn’t be done as their manager wanted, Led Zeppelin simply wouldn’t play that event, festival or concert. This was especially true in the early days, like this summer of ’69.

Led Zeppelin had become a headliner, a main attraction. Peter Grant did not want the high-flying Zeppelin to be grounded amid a myriad of other acts. He and the band shunned television appearances. They felt the sound from a small TV set speaker didn’t do the band’s music justice. Grant likewise believed that the Woodstock billing would not properly showcase his band. It was an act that should stand out from, not be buried by, others.

In retrospect, it may have been a mistake for Led Zeppelin to have missed out on Woodstock but we have to remember the historical context within which they, and Peter Grant, made the decision. Grant’s instincts were by and large uncannily correct and beneficial to the band.

Peter Grant is quoted below, in the book Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, by Dave Lewis and Simon Pallett.

“We were asked to do Woodstock and Atlantic were very keen, and so was our U.S. promoter, Frank Barsalona. I said no because we’d have been just another band on the bill.”(1)

Another world expert on Led Zeppelin, author and researcher Robert Godwin, had this to say in his book, The Press Reports. His words confirm that, despite the ethereal times pop music enjoyed in the late 1960s, the business side of the music industry continued to call the tune.

“Two new articles finally explain why the band didn’t play the legendary festival. Apparently they were originally approached to appear but decided not to because the contract required that they not play anywhere else in the area. They had several dates booked and those dates paid considerably more money and thus they refused to cancel them. An interview with an agent from Premier says that they will have had five shows in the area around that weekend. This suggests there are still a few shows missing from the itinerary.”(2)

Further research by Godwin, Lewis and Pallett determined that Peter Grant had booked performances for Led Zeppelin throughout the Eastern Seaboard and into Canada, not far from the U.S. border. Here are the dates that cluster and coincide with the Woodstock Festival weekend of August 15-18, 1969. They show us EXACTLY what Led Zeppelin was up to, and where.

San Antonio, Texas, Hemisfair Arena. Friday, August 15
Zeppelin shared the bill with Jethro Tull and Sweet Smoke. Instead of experiencing “peace, love and music” in this Southern state, the band’s musicians were harassed by the San Antonio locals because of their lengthy locks!

Asbury Park, Convention Center of the Boardwalk, New Jersey. Saturday, August 16
While Led Zeppelin was performing two shows this evening (at 7:30 and 9:45pm), Canned Heat and The Grateful Dead were playing at Woodstock. Zeppelin was joined on this bill by Joe Cocker who then flew out to perform the next day, Sunday, August 17, at Woodstock! By all accounts, he was a sensation there, too.

Oakdale Music Theatre, Wallingford, Connecticut. Sunday, August 17
Jimmy Page is known for his “show must go on” attitude when performing. Over the years, he has played on despite fever and broken fingers. But one of the rare things that he has commented on as not sitting at all well with him is playing on a revolving stage. In interviews, he has commented that he finds it disorienting to play as the stage goes round.

This venue was like that. Only a fragment of this concert was captured on tape and released on a couple iterations of bootleg CDs. Train Kept A Rollin’ and I Can’t Quit You Baby, are the only two songs known to have ever surfaced from this gig.

Despite the rather uneven sound of this recording, due largely to the revolving stage which compromised an already rough recording, we’re able to hear how Led Zeppelin was playing, at least for a few minutes, on that long-ago “Woodstock Weekend”.

While the likes of Ten Years After and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, were raving it up at Woodstock on this Sunday, August 17, 1969, Led Zeppelin was rocking its own way into music history, all around the Eastern Seaboard.

The CD boots I mentioned are:
Tales from ’69 (Tarantura 69-3-1-3). A triple CD set with various material from 1969; and
Red Snapper Deluxe (Balboa BP-95010/11). A double CD set with Oakdale Music Theatre material coupled with a 1972 performance in Montreal, Canada.

The Rock Pile, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Monday, August 18
As I mentioned earlier, Jimi Hendrix went on at 8:30am on Monday, August 18, 1969 to close the Woodstock Festival. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin was preparing to play that evening only a couple hundred miles away, at The Rock Pile. Music reviewer Ritchie Yorke raved about the band and how much it had improved since he had witnessed its previous performance there on February 2, 1969.

Beyond the “Woodstock Weekend”, there were other concert dates not far from Max Yasgar’s farm; notably at The Aerodrome in Schenectady, NY on Wednesday, August 20 and the Carousel Theatre in Framingham, Massachusetts on Thursday, August 21 as well as at locations much farther away.

It’s only reasonable that Peter Grant and Led Zeppelin wouldn’t have wanted to cancel gigs that had been set up as part of their tour, or risk potential lawsuits that could have resulted from not honouring contracts with promoters. If those dates paid better (and they did), it was a business trip for Zeppelin and not a nostalgia trip as it is for us today.

In August of 1969, no one – including Led Zeppelin – had any way of knowing what a huge part of music history Woodstock was destined to become.

What Is and What Should Never Be...

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Godwin, Robert. Ed. Robert Godwin. Led Zeppelin: The Press Reports. Collector’s Guide Publications, Inc. Burlington, Canada,1997.
Godwin, Robert. The Illustrated Collector’s Guide To Led Zeppelin (CD Edition-Volume 2), Collector’s Guide Publications, Inc. Burlington, Canada, 1998.
Lewis, Dave with Simon Pallett. Led Zeppelin: The Concert File. Omnibus Press. London, England, 2005.
Rey, Luis. Led Zeppelin Live: An Illustrated Exploration of Underground Tapes: The Final Edition, The Hot Wacks Press. Owen Sound, Canada, 1997.
Festival and Encyclopedia Article
Ventures

FOOTNOTES
(1) Dave Lewis & Simon Pallett, Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, 2005: p. 77
(2) Robert Godwin, The Press Reports, 1997/2003: p. 490

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Reminders

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