The English rock band Led Zeppelin staged a concert tour of Denmark and Sweden in September 1968. The shows marked the band's first concert tour, though they were billed under the name "the Yardbirds".[1]
Tour by Led Zeppelin | |
![]() Poster for Led Zeppelin's concert at Gladsaxe (billed as "The Yardbirds"), used to help promote its 1968 Scandinavian tour | |
Location |
|
---|---|
Start date | 7 September 1968 |
End date | 17 September 1968 |
Legs | 1 |
No. of shows | 9 (10 scheduled) |
Led Zeppelin concert chronology |
Overview
editLed Zeppelin's debut tour was an outstanding contractual commitment left over from The Yardbirds. The band's first concert at Teen Club, a school gymnasium in Gladsaxe, Denmark, was performed exactly two months to the day after The Yardbirds' final concert.[2] The band's manager, Peter Grant, later said of this first concert: "Standing by the side of the stage, it was obvious that there was special chemistry."[3]
Guitarist Jimmy Page recalled that "the tour went fantastically for us, we left them stomping the floors after every show."[4] According to singer Robert Plant:
We made no money on the first tour. Nothing at all. Jimmy [Page] put in every penny that he'd gotten from the Yardbirds and that wasn't much. Until Peter Grant took them over, they didn't make the money they should have made. So we made the album and took off on a tour with a road crew of one.[5]
Plant also recalled the following:
In Scandinavia we were pretty green; it was very early days and we were tiptoeing with each other. We didn't have half the recklessness that became for me the whole joy of Led Zeppelin. It was a tentative start.[6]
For these early shows, the band was billed as the "Yardbirds" or "New Yardbirds", despite the fact that Jimmy Page was now the only surviving link with the previous band. Page later said:
We realised we were working under false pretences, the thing had gone quickly beyond where The Yardbirds had left off. We all agreed there was no point in retaining the New Yardbirds tag so when we got back from Scandinavia we decided to change the name [of the band]. It was a fresh beginning for us all.[7]
Tour dates
editDate | City | Country | Venue | Opening Act(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
7 September 1968 | Gladsaxe | Denmark | Gladsaxe Teen Club | Fourways, Bodies |
Brøndby | Brøndby Pop-Club | The Day of Phønix, The Eyes | ||
8 September 1968 | Lolland | Reventlowparken | Beatnicks | |
Roskilde | Fjordvilla | LadyBirds (es), Beauty Fools | ||
Køge | Teaterbygningen | |||
12 September 1968 | Stockholm | Sweden | Gröna Lund | Hep Stars, Marmalade |
13 September 1968 | Inside | Bernt Staff, Bertil Bertilsson | ||
14 September 1968 | Knivsta | Ängby Park | Kenneth Staags with Hayati Kafé | |
15 September 1968 | Gothenburg | Liseberg | ||
Setlist
editThe setlists of the earliest shows are sketchy, as no recordings of these shows exist.
A likely setlist for this tour consisted of:
References
edit- ^ "Led Zeppelin: Pictures show first concert, in 1968". BBC News. 15 July 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ Mick Wall (2008), When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography Of Led Zeppelin, London: Orion, p. 47.
- ^ Ian Fortnam, "Dazed & confused", Classic Rock Magazine: Classic Rock Presents Led Zeppelin, 2008, p. 41.
- ^ Dave Schulps, Interview with Jimmy Page Archived 2011-08-20 at the Wayback Machine, Trouser Press, October 1977.
- ^ Interview with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, January 1975
- ^ Mat Snow, “Apocalypse Then”, Q magazine, December 1990, p. 77.
- ^ Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4, p. 12.
Sources
edit- Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4.