Led Zeppelin United Kingdom Tour 1972–1973

United Kingdom 1972/1973
Concert by Led Zeppelin
Associated album Led Zeppelin IV
Houses of the Holy
Start date 28 October 1972
End date 30 January 1973
Legs 2
No. of shows 27 (including two European warm-up shows)
Led Zeppelin concert chronology

Led Zeppelin's 1972–1973 United Kingdom Tour was a concert tour of the United Kingdom by the English rock band. The tour commenced on 28 October 1972 and concluded on 30 January 1973.

History

The tour was preceded by two warm-up shows in Montreux, Switzerland, and rehearsals at the Rainbow Theatre in London, before formally kicking off at Newcastle upon Tyne.

This was Led Zeppelin's longest ever tour of the United Kingdom, and the original 110,000 tickets for the 25 dates sold out within four hours of box offices opening simultaneously on 10 November. Tickets were charged £1 for all the concerts, except for the shows at Manchester which charged £1.25.[1]

Two dates, in Bradford[2] and Preston[3] respectively, needed to be postponed as a result of singer Robert Plant contracting influenza after the car in which he and drummer John Bonham were travelling broke down on the way to a concert in Sheffield on 2 January.[1] An additional date was also added at Southampton University on 22 January.[4]

Led Zeppelin archivists Dave Lewis and Simon Pallet have characterised this concert tour as something of an end of an era for the band:

Overall, this lengthy set of dates reaffirmed their status in the U.K. It would however prove to be the last opportunity for British audiences to see Led Zeppelin in their homeland at such close quarters. Venues such as the Aberystwyth Kings Hall with its capacity of under 800 would soon be a thing of the past. The stadium era beckoned.[1]

This would be the last full UK tour Led Zeppelin would undertake. The five Earl's Court 1975 shows and two Knebworth Festival 1979 shows would be their only subsequent performances in Britain before Bonham's death in 1980.

Recordings

High-quality stereo soundboard bootleg recordings have been distributed on the internet from the show of 7 January at Oxford and the show of 22 January at Southampton. The ambiance is very intimate on these recordings, as these were small theatre-size venues. The Southampton show was professionally recorded and intended for an official release, but the performance quality was not deemed adequate. Instead, Jimmy Page selected the Madison Square Garden shows from later in the year for the live album The Song Remains the Same (1976). The mellotron track from "Stairway to Heaven" which was included on the live album How The West Was Won (2003) was actually from 22 January Southampton show; all of the other material on this album came from the 1972 shows in Southern California.

The recordings from this tour reveal further strain in Robert Plant's voice that began on the previous tour of Japan. He struggled to sing "Over the Hills and Far Away" at the Oxford show, and for all remaining live performances of this song through 1979, he changed the melody to a lower register. Plant also changed the melody of the song "Rock and Roll", singing it in a lower register and moving the song to the start of the set.

Tour set list

The set list pattern was virtually the same as that played during the previous Japanese tour. The fairly typical set list was:

  1. "Rock and Roll" (Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham)
  2. "Over the Hills and Far Away" (Page, Plant)
  3. "Out on the Tiles" (intro) (Page, Plant, Bonham) / "Black Dog" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  4. "Misty Mountain Hop" (Jones, Page, Plant)
  5. "Since I've Been Loving You" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  6. "Dancing Days" (Page, Plant)
  7. "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  8. "The Song Remains the Same" (Page, Plant)
  9. "The Rain Song" (Page, Plant)
  10. "Dazed and Confused" (Page)
  11. "Stairway to Heaven" (Page, Plant)
  12. "Whole Lotta Love" (Bonham, Dixon, Jones, Page, Plant)

Encores (variations of the following list):

There were some set list substitutions, variations, and order switches during the tour. "How Many More Times" was also played on 22 January.

Tour dates

Date City Country Venue
European warm-up shows
27 October 1972 Montreux Switzerland The Casino
28 October 1972
United Kingdom
30 November 1972 Newcastle upon Tyne England Newcastle City Hall
1 December 1972
3 December 1972 Glasgow Scotland Green's Playhouse
4 December 1972
7 December 1972 Manchester England Hard Rock
8 December 1972
11 December 1972 Cardiff Wales Capitol Theater
12 December 1972
16 December 1972 Birmingham England Odeon
17 December 1972
20 December 1972 Brighton Brighton Dome
22 December 1972 London Alexandra Palace
23 December 1972
2 January 1973 Sheffield Sheffield City Hall
3 January 1973 Preston Guild Hall cancelled, concert postponed until 30 January
4 January 1973 Bradford St George's Hall cancelled, concert postponed until 18 January
7 January 1973 Oxford New Theatre Oxford
14 January 1973 Liverpool Liverpool Empire Theatre
15 January 1973 Stoke-on-Trent Trentham Gardens
16 January 1973 Aberystwyth Wales King's Hall
18 January 1973 Bradford England St George's Hall
21 January 1973 Southampton Gaumont Theatre
22 January 1973 Southampton University
25 January 1973 Aberdeen Scotland Music Hall Aberdeen
27 January 1973 Dundee Caird Hall
28 January 1973 Edinburgh King's Theatre
30 January 1973 Preston England Guild Hall

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4, p. 83.
  2. ↑ Led Zeppelin official website: concert summary
  3. ↑ Led Zeppelin official website: concert summary
  4. ↑ Led Zeppelin official website: concert summary

Sources

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.