It might be hard to imagine now, but Led Zeppelin was once a bunch of relative unknowns looking to build a following. Well, Jimmy Page was a known commodity after playing lead guitar for the Yardbirds, but his bandmates — Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones — weren’t. Plant was blown away when he heard Led Zeppelin I through headphones because of the power of the music. Not long after, all it took was one concert for Plant to realize Led Zeppelin’s songs might mean something special to music fans.
Led Zeppelin worked tirelessly when they formed and gained confidence with their live shows
Page didn’t wallow when he was the last one standing as the Yardbirds split up. The guitarist quickly assembled Led Zeppelin from the ashes.
Even though he was playing with a little-known band at an obscure venue, Plant blew away Page with his vocal performance when the guitarist went to see him perform. The singer recommended another Birmingham, England, musician, Bonham, for drums. Multi-instrumentalist and session ace Jones rounded out the lineup.
Within weeks, the band that became Led Zeppelin (they were first billed as the New Yardbirds) rehearsed songs, recorded their powerful debut album, and toured Scandinavia and England before leaving for a tour of the United States.
Fans hadn’t even heard Page’s grand plan for the debut album when Plant realized Led Zeppelin’s music might mean something to discerning fans.
Robert Plant said one concert made him realize Led Zeppelin’s songs ‘might mean something’
It’s not a stretch to say Led Zeppelin had a huge impact on music. Several famous artists had a visceral reaction to the band’s music.
Ozzy Osbourne said Black Sabbath revamped their sound because of Led Zeppelin. Queen guitarist Brian May said seeing the band was like torture because they were everything he wanted his band to become. Jeff Beck cried over Led Zeppelin’s version of “You Shook Me.”
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Music fans in the United States had the same reaction, particularly in California in 1969. Some of Led Zeppelin’s first U.S. shows happened at the famed Whisky a Go-Go in Los Angeles in early January 1969. As C.M. Kushins writes in the Bonham biography Beast, the band migrated up the coast and played four nights in San Francisco opening for Taj Mahal and Country Joe & the Fish. Plant said the reaction from the fans proved to him that Led Zeppelin’s songs would really mean something.
“Bonzo and I looked at each other during the set and thought, ‘Christ, we’ve got something.’ That was the first time we realized Led Zeppelin might mean something. There was so much intimacy with the audience, and if you could crack San Francisco at the height of the [Jefferson] Airplane and Grateful Dead period, then it meant something.”
Robert Plant
Plant was 100% right about Led Zeppelin’s impact on fans. In the near term, the band earned praise for its performances during the four nights in San Francisco in January 1969, as press clippings on Led Zeppelin’s website show. In the long term, Zep only got bigger.
History shows LZ songs and albums had a massive impact
Bonham once said Led Zeppelin’s popularity stemmed from the band giving fans what they wanted to hear. Plant said he knew the band had something special early in its career. Both of them were right.
Zep created a string of hit albums that topped the charts and sold millions of copies. Even Coda, the surprisingly strong collection of leftover songs released after the band broke up, went platinum just as their eight studio albums did. The legendary concerts drew massive crowds. By 1973, Led Zeppelin were breaking The Beatles’ concert attendance records.
Many critics (notably Rolling Stone) panned the band, and they didn’t win a Grammy the only time they were nominated as an active group. But none of that mattered. Fans loved them, and Robert Plant knew Led Zeppelin’s songs might mean something to the public when they wowed the crowds in San Francisco in 1969.
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