The British quartet were big favourites in Vancouver, but cut their 1973 show short to take.
One of the great rock ‘n’ roll photos in The Vancouver Sun archives is Vlad Keremidschieff’s shot of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant performing at the Pacific Coliseum on July 18, 1973.
It shows Plant in full rock god mode, extending his right arm and ending with a fist, his long flowing locks looking more like a mane than hair, his tiny vest ripped open to reveal his bare chest.
An unknown editor has outlined his figure in whiteout, so that the background could be cropped out in the paper. In case the graphic artists who laid the paper out didn’t understand, the editor has written three X’s in the background.
But the serious look on his face is a bit puzzling. Is he brooding? Is he angry? Is he dazed and confused?
Probably the latter. Led Zeppelin cut their concert short that night.
“It was explained to an almost surly Coliseum audience that lead singer Robert Plant was being taken to the hospital and would we please leave in an orderly manner,” reported the Sun’s reviewer Don Stanley.
It wasn’t in the papers at the time, but somebody apparently had slipped some LSD into Plant’s drink, which had a negative impact on his performance.
Jeani Read of The Province was kinder, writing Plant “fronted the group admirably for the better than two-hour set,” but said the concert “was hardly an unmitigated triumph.”
Not knowing this, Stanley ripped them.
“Their concert was terrible, unbelievably inept for the top draw in contemporary rock,” he wrote.
Read noted “much of their original amazing adrenalin drive” had dissipated into “long, slowly evolving extended versions of their blockbuster early material.”
Stanley was not big on a 20-minute drum solo by John Bonham.
“Most drum solos are boring,” he wrote, “this one was wretched.”
Led Zeppelin had a long history in Vancouver, dating to the band’s first appearance opening for Vanilla Fudge at the Agrodome on Dec. 28, 1968.
Reviewer Jim Allan of the Columbian wasn’t impressed, writing “Led Zeppelin went over like a Led balloon.”
But Brian McLeod of The Province loved the quartet he mistakenly called “Mad Zeppelin,” noting guitarist Jimmy Page “performs like Carlos Montoya in a 10-gallon hat” and Plant “sings Joan Baez with affliction and affection, using the cry of a thousand banshees to punctuate his feelings.”
It may seem odd to link Robert Plant with Joan Baez, but she recorded the Led Zeppelin standard Babe I’m Going to Leave You years before they did.
Zeppelin soon exploded in popularity, playing two Vancouver shows in 1969 as well as single dates in 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1975.
As their audience grew, so did the wildness of their audience. At a March 22, 1970 Coliseum show, the Express (a union paper during a newspaper strike) reported “about 50 senseless fans” vaulted onto the stage “during the fever pitch of Whole Lotta Love.”
On Aug. 19, 1971, the band sold out the Coliseum (17,141 tickets), leaving 3,000 fans outside. The ticketless fans tried to force their way in, resulting in a battle with police and security that left 35 fans and two police officers injured.
Rather than risk a larger riot, the police let the 3,000 fans into the Coliseum.
Zeppelin was supposed to play Vancouver again on June 18, 1972. But after Rolling Stones fans rioted when they couldn’t get into a Coliseum concert on June 3, 1972, the city cancelled the Zeppelin show.
The promoter had already printed up posters for the show, but almost all of them were destroyed before being put up. This has made it something of a Holy Grail among Led Zeppelin collectors: the poster’s designer Kerry Waghorn says copies have sold for $17,000.
Waghorn was given 150 of the posters by the promoter, but threw them out because he didn’t like his illustration.
Oddly, Keremidschieff’s great 1973 photo of Robert Plant wasn’t used with Don Stanley’s review — the Sun used another Keremidschieff shot of Plant. The one with whiteout must have been used at another time.
There is also a marvellous Keremidschieff print of guitarist Jimmy Page from the 1973 show playing a double neck guitar, but it wasn’t used with the review, either. It’s included in the online version of this story.