Speaking of Led Zep

dragon1952

I ran across this today even though it's probably been there forever.
http://www.led-zeppelin.com/bio.html
I was at one of those San Francisco Fillmore West shows with Country Joe and the Fish, Led Zep and Taj Mahal where Led Zep was second billing. They just kicked everyone's asses. We were so blown away by them! (the acid didn't hurt any ) The show cost $3 and featured 2 approximately hour long sets by each band. Here an excerpt;

"The first reviews of the album were surprisingly skeptical. It was a time of "supergroups," of furiously-hyped bands who could barely cut it, and Led Zeppelin initially found themselves fighting upstream to prove their authenticity. A critical drubbing by Rolling Stone would remain painful for years. It set an ominous tone for the group as they left Los Angeles and headed up to San Francisco to begin their tour.

Manager Peter Grant had a game plan. He'd avoided releasing any singles, and had studiously booked the group into key hotspots for progressive music. This group would not compete on AM radio with Gary Puckett or the Fifth Dimension. Led Zeppelin was more about an entire album. It would be a private experience, a word-of-mouth affair, something to be passed between friends like a good joint. The key piece of this plan would be their show at San Francisco's Fillmore West.

"The important thing," Plant said recently, "was that Peter told us if we didn't crack San Francisco, we'd have to go home. That was the place that was considered to be essential, the hotbed of the whole movement. It was the acid test, forget the Kool-Aid, and if we weren't convincing, they would have known right away. I said `I've been singing for years. I'd be happy to sing anywhere.' But he had his eyes set on something I couldn't even imagine."

The band was sharing the bill with Taj Mahal and Country Joe and the Fish. They arrived to find they'd been advertised only as "Supporting Act." The mission was clear—do or die—and Led Zeppelin took the stage that night with a vengeance. Jimmy Page could feel something happening in the audience, even from the stage. "It felt like a vacuum and we'd arrived to fill it," he explains. "First this row, then that row...it was like a tornado and it went rolling across the country."

By the time the band hit New York, they were headliners. The first album went top ten and stayed on the charts more than a year. They would tour the US three times in 1969 alone."

ND13

I've got this article somewhere, I know. Man, only if I'd been born about 4-5 years earlier, I could have seen them live. By the time Bonham died, I was only 12-13 and was still a couple of years away from my parents letting me go to concerts.

Pablo

Saw them in 78 at Madison Square Garden. Fantasic show. I just wish I was more of a Zep fan that year like I was the years following (then I would have freaked durning the acustic set). Mailed for tickets the next year the day JB died (bummer).