The Nobs - 12.30.68 - Discombobulated - 04
Uploader: Thomas Rutherford
Original upload date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Sat, 04 Dec 2021 11:00:07 GMT
Artist: Len Zefflin (Led Zeppelin)
Bootleg Album: Gonzaga 1968
Date: December 30th 1968
Song: Dazed And Confused
Concert Setlist:
1. The Train Kept A-Rollin'
2. I Can't Quit You Baby
3. As Lo
Show more...
ng As I Have You/Fresh Garbage/Shake/Mockingbird
4. Dazed And Confused
5. White Summer
6. How Many More Times/The Hunter
7. Pat's Delight
Concert Notes:
How obscure was the opening band for Vanilla Fudge at Gonzaga University on Dec. 30, 1968? Well, the ads in both The Spokesman-Review and Chronicle read, "The Vanilla Fudge, with Len Zefflin."
The ad copywriter misheard the name and thought it was some guy named "Len Zefflin."
Little did anybody know that old Len would turn out to be Led Zeppelin, one of the most popular and influential rock bands of all time, whose reunion concert this month made worldwide news.
That 1968 show at Gonzaga's Kennedy Pavilion would later assume a historic status in Zeppelin lore -- all because a student brought a small tape recorder.
Today, this tape -- bootlegged and distributed all over the world and the Web -- is widely considered the first Led Zeppelin concert ever captured on tape; the earliest live recording of Led Zeppelin ever.
Here's how lead singer Robert Plant introduced one of the songs: "This is off an album that comes out in about three weeks time on the Atlantic label. It's called 'Led Zeppelin.' This is a tune ... called 'Dazed and Confused.' "
So their first album wasn't even out yet. The album would not make a mark on the charts until February 1969.
This concert was only their fifth in the U.S. The band had done tours of the U.K. and Scandinavia a few months before, many of them as The New Yardbirds, the band's short-lived original name. Some of these dates were actually leftover bookings for the Yardbirds, guitarist Jimmy Page's earlier band. Page and his new mates Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones had taken over some of these concert bookings.
So the band was mostly an unknown quantity. Yet at least one concertgoer, Bob Gallagher -- a record store 4,000 Holes -- was aware that he wasn't going to see some guy named Len Zefflin.
"We knew who Jimmy Page was, from the Yardbirds, and we heard it was his band," said Gallagher, who was a teenager at the time. "I was a big Vanilla Fudge fan because psychedelia was really happening then. ... But we were excited about seeing Jimmy Page."
Spokane was experiencing a severe cold snap that week, with temperatures dropping to 10 below. Apparently, the Kennedy Pavilion (Gonzaga's gym) wasn't well-heated either, because many fans remember it as being icy inside, as well.
But when Led Zeppelin launched into the first song, the place heated up.
"Bonham came out and started drumming on 'Train Kept a-Rollin',' and everybody went, 'Holy crap,' " said Gallagher. "There's never been a drummer like him. He was awesome. Then they all started playing and they were totally amazing."
Plant said, between songs, "You won't believe this, but I don't think that either ourselves or our equipment is quite used to the temperature. It's taken about three hours of gas stoves under the equipment to get everything going."
A little later Plant said they were now "getting warmed up properly," and you can hear the crowd response building after each song. By the evidence of the recording, the band's sound was already fully formed, distinguished by Plant's wailing voice -- at one point he sounds like a siren -- and Page's virtuoso guitar.
"What I mostly remember is when Jimmy Page took out a violin bow and began bowing his double-neck guitar," remembered Jeff "Tor" Nadeau. "The house was universally mind-blown. It was the most stunning and awesome sound ever."
"It took about a half a song before everybody was blown away," remembered David Priano. "When Plant harmonized to Page's pipe-wrench riffs, the audience went nuts. The other thing I remember was the drum solo (during 'Pat's Delight'). As a rule I don't like them. This was the exception. When he threw away his drum sticks and finished with his bare hands -- far out."