headed to a Neil Diamond concert. A sensational power rock band, Led
Zeppelin, the latest version of "heavy bands" which started with Cream
back in 66" were in Toronto to do two sold out shows. My friends Donnie
Ditchburn, David Strawbridge who worked for John Gibb, a local Toronto
clothier (his store was later to become Longjohns, retailers of "rock
n'roll clothing"), and I had tickets to the 7:00 p.m. show. Gibb was an old
school chum of Jimmy Page and he had had them over for dinner that
evening. Pagy as he was called by his mates, was the former front man and
lead guitarist for the now defunct Yardbirds, and since he had formed his
new band Led Zeppelin, they sailed to the top of the album charts and
underground radio stations with their first record entitled Led Zepplin 1.
A previous gig at the same venue earlier in the year (February) had
brought quite a lot of good press, espcially from Ritchie Yorke, the
Toronto Telegram's resident writer for rock concert reviews back then.
Since the release of the first album, Led Zepellin's popularity had
created a large cult following thanks to the incredible guitar playing of
Jimmy Page and the wailing and siren like voice of the lead singer, Robert
Plant. The giant leap in record sales and popularity became for the
promotors of this particular show, both a blessing and a curse. Led
Zeppelin's fee had jumped from $2,000 in February to $8,000 for the two
shows on this nite, and Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin's notorious manager was
not prepared to honour the agreement he had made with the promoters back
in February. More about this later.
The venue for the concert was called the Rockpile, which in fact was
the old Masonic Temple located at Davenport and Yonge St. In the past year
(68-69), The Rockpile had been converted to Toronto's version of Fillmore
East, which was much to the dusgruntlement of the old Masons who still had
some sway and influence in the running of the hall. What bothered them
most was all the Marijuana smoke used by all of the stoned out hippies who
attended these shows. To the Masons, this temple was a sacred venue. It
was a very hot August night as the doors opened at 6:30 and the huge
lineup piled in quickly so as to get the best possible viewpoint in the
hall as there were no seats, you got to sit cross legged on the main floor
or stand in the Balcony.
By the time my mates and I got inside we headed straight up up to the
balcony area which was jammed packed shoulder to shoulder and hot hot hot.
David was a bit of a dandy and would not have considered for a minute
sitting down in his finest Carnaby styled garb. We would regret not
sitting in a bit later. By the time the opening act came on, Edward Bear,
The inside of the building must have gone well into the 90 degree
faranheit range with very high humidity and high smoke density. You surely
did not need to bring your own stuff that night because the air was filled
with the sweet smell of pungent smoke. Edward Bear was local pop trio and
radio favourite who had a hit, You Me and Mexico". I found them to be very
commercial and in fact could not stand their veiled attempts to look the
part with long haired crowd by looking the part with hair down to their
shoulders and bell bottomed jeans while at the same time they played
forgettable commercial pop. We were here to see our heroes play with the
Marshall amps stacked to the ceiling, wailing away to the songs from Led
Zepellin 1. Once their set was finished, they were given a poite and
energetic hometown Canadian response and off they went. Perhaps we only
had a 20 minute wait for the main act, our heroes!! I couldn't stans the
excitement and anticipation, this was going to be my first live experience
to the most listened to band in my repotoire of favourite groups and it
was all about to unfold live in front of my eyes. And we waited, and we
sweated some more, and we waited. It suddenly dawned on us that there was
a problem. Led Zeppelin was backstage but Peter Grant would not let them
go on. Seems the promoters insisted that he honour the contracual option
they had exercised from the previous gig and Peter Grant said no way. His
attitude was that they had two sold out houses and the band wanted their
full fee otherwise they were going back to the hotel an onto the next city
on this tour. A tug of war was going on while the 2000 or so of us sweated
it out and waited some more. The promoters finally gave in and after about
1 1/2 hours of waiting, which made it about 9:00 pm, we heard the roadies
nailing down a drum kit behind the curtain followed by a drummer slashing
away at his drums getting ready to play. Then we heard a guitar, and then
a bass guitar. Ooh I couldn't take the excitement at that stage, we were
moments away.
Suddenly, there was a locomotive opening guitar sound from the song A
Train kept a Rollin, an old Yardbirds standby. A thundering drum sound and
then the curtains exploded open. There they were. The place was bedlam.
The band looked very little like the group photo on the back of the first
album. Plant had hair down to the middle of his back in blond curls, and
was dressed in bell bottom blue jeans and a bright red tee shirt. Page had
hair down to his waist, dressed in pink pants and had a Les Paul Sunburst
guitar draped over his body, and Jones and Bonham also had very very long
hair and wore the fashions of the day even in this ridiculous hot house.
All I could think at that moment was how cool they looked. It was like a
wave of gigantic sound had hit you and we were on a journey to places I
had never been to before in a concert. Marshall amps were piled to the
ceiling. It was loud and that was fine by me, how else was one to listen
to Led Zeppelin except at ear splitting volume. Plant sang stronger and
harder than anything I'd ever heard before on record. He raced around the
stage shaking his shoulders, whipping his head around to shake all that
hair, and throwing back beer from the Heinekins he had stashed on Jonesy's
amp at the back of the stage, while the maestro Jimmy Page leaned over his
guitar, brought his knees together in a weird sort of knock kneed pose,
while rarely looking up from behind all of that jet black cascading mop.
The music spoke to us, we were a part of history as far as I was concerned
because this group had more energy and spontaneity than any group I had
ever seen. It was raw energy, uninhibted, creative, and free from any
contrivances.They segued into I Can't quit you Babe, You Shook Me, and
then Dazed and Confused where somewhere in the middle of the song, the
violin bow came out. It was a typical 18-20 minute version of the song
from the early days of the band but what really blew my mind was the vocal
and guitar interplay between Page and Plant. Page would play some notes,
Plant would sing them, Plant would sing some notes, Page would play them.
This was not typical stuff that bands would do in concerts. This was
taking improvisation out of the box, never to return, Amazing. Then, after
Plant inroduced the band to us as Jimmy played the intro notes to another
Yardbirds standby, Smokestack Lightening, they jumped into the finale, How
Many More Times complete with the Lemon Song bit into the middle. This
number number completely brought the house down with the tradition blues
rendition of Squeeze My Lemon until the juice runs down my leg. Then as
fast as they had arrived, Robert said to us" We have another house to
play to tonight, sorry we took so long and see you soon". Then they were
off, no encore . When I left the venue and finally got onto the street out
of the hot house of the Rockpile, I really thought that this group, Led
Zeppelin would be bigger than Beatles. I was close, and 34 years later I'm
still a big fan.
Iden