Led Zeppelin Tour - A Life-Altering Event

Throughout the 1970s, a Led Zeppelin tour would frequently mean shattering attendance records for popular music events.

Led Zeppelin is considered to be one of the greatest live acts in the history of popular music. Tickets were snapped up and sold out overnight.

There was just a fanatical response to the group’s music. Why? What could possibly account for this? I set out to answer these questions through my research.

Led Zeppelin toured from 1968 through 1980 on a gruelling and global itinerary: multiple tours and hundreds of concerts. I was fascinated to discover that so many people were vapourized by Zeppelin live, even calling their concerts “life-altering”!

His Favourite Band. Vanilla Who?!!

The first Led Zeppelin tour to hit North America landed in Vancouver, Canada on December 28, 1968.One of my interviewees had gone to see his favourite band, Vanilla Fudge. The then-unknown Led Zeppelin wasn’t even advertised.

He says when this warm-up band started at Pacific Coliseum, it hit you like a tidal wave. “You just couldn’t keep your eyes off them. It was just so phenomenal in every way; they had this power all about them.”

He didn’t even stay for the band he’d paid his money to see! “I forgot all about The Fudge in nothing flat! Isn’t that something? I didn’t see how Vanilla Fudge could even come close, as soon as Zeppelin started.”

photo credits

Concert-goer Gets Blown Away In Buffalo

In June 1972, another Led Zeppelin tour stopped in Buffalo, New York. Again I was able to interview someone who was there – a local radio personality and devoted Beatles fan who had seen countless bands perform, including The Who.

When Zeppelin opened that Saturday, June 10 concert at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium with Immigrant Song, the sonic alchemy was beyond any previous concert experience. He had never ever seen or heard anything like Led Zeppelin live before.

He said “To see them in concert was mind blowing. It’s a long time ago now but I’ll always remember that concert. I know it sounds cliché - and it is! - but that show changed my life.”

Zeppelin’s “Magical Mystery Tours” No Accident

On any given Led Zeppelin tour, the band’s music conjured up a magical effect on audiences everywhere. Mesmerizing, mystical, hypnotic. Even life-altering, apparently! But it was the group’s hard work, not black magic, that created the spell.

Transfixing songs, riveting stage presence and exceptional musicianship were just the beginning.

Much of the band’s touring success was rooted in its members’ unwavering professionalism. To say that “the band played on” is a gross understatement!

Jimmy Page played with sprained and broken fingers. Robert Plant sang despite influenza. John Paul Jones strummed through colic and John Bonham drummed through fatigue and stomach problems. I learned that, on most tours, at least one band member was ailing.

There were times when Zeppelin arrived at their gigs more than a bit “dazed and confused”. But when the lights went down and it was time to play, they got their act together like no other rock group in history.

For more first-hand accounts of Led Zeppelin’s early tours, check out my interviews with people who were there, in Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin. Volume 1-Break & Enter.

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