Zeppelin's Last Stand

Today is the 30th anniversary of the final U.S. concert by Led Zeppelin at the Oakland Coliseum. July 23, 1977. It wasn't intended to be their final US show, it just turned out to be their last one.

This show was Led Zeppelin's infamous "Oakland incident" where their manager Peter Grant and drummer John Bonham were indicted for beating up a member of Bill Graham's stage crew. This incident combined with Robert Plant's six year old son son Karac dying from a viral infection a few years later forced the rest of their 1977 US tour to be cancelled. Then John Bonham died before they had a chance to tour the US in 1980, so the Coliseum show turned out to be Led Zeppelin's last stand, at least in the USA.

The concert was one of Bill Graham's "Days On The Green", his summer concert series at the Oakland Coliseum. Judas Priest opened for Led Zeppelin in their first ever U.S. appearance. I didn't attend the concert (I was only eleven, didn't have a taste for hard rock, and wouldn't have been allowed to go even if I did), but having a Led Zep concert t-shirt from that tour was a badge of coolness at my Jr. High for the next two years. Writing LED ZEPPLIN in sharpie on a plain white t-shirt wasn't quite as cool! I heard a bootleg of this 7/23/1977 concert, and it wasn't a very good show. It did rock, but they were touring behind Presence (nobody's favorite Zeppelin album), and were at the apex of 1970s stadium rock excess, more bloated and corpulent than any band ever was, before or after.

My first Day On The Green concert was in 1980, when I saw Molly Hatchet, Black Sabbath (the Dio version), Cheap Trick, and Journey. A whole bunch of bands with very little crossover. I was there to see Cheap Trick, tolerated Sabbath, and hated Journey, while the Black Sabbath fans endured CT and hated Journey, and the Journey fans hated every band that wasn't Journey. It seemed like Journey headlined a DOTG show every year -- they must have been Bill Graham's favorite band. His and Tony Soprano's both.

I did see Robert Plant in his first solo concert ever, at Peoria's Carver Arena in August 1983, which coincided with my first week of freshman orientation at Bradley University. Plant's band featured Phil Collins on drums, and he only played songs from his first two solo albums (no Zeppelin) to everyone's dismay, but it was the early 80s, so we got a lot of gated drumming from Phil. And this show was also where Collins came up with the title for his third solo album (No Jacket Required), when an employee at the Pere Marquette in Peoria told him he couldn't enter the lounge without a jacket.

A few months later, I saw Genesis at Carver Arena, on the first show of their "Mama" tour. And more of Phil's gated percussion. I still don't understand why Robert Plant and Genesis both started their 1983 US tours in Peoria, IL. It would have made more sense to travel from one coast to the other rather than starting in the center of the country. But there's no point in playing the big city without the assurance that your show will play in Peoria.

(mp3 from 2fs)
Little Roger & The Goosebumps - Stairway to Gilligan's Island