The Durable Led Zeppelin

It has been a long time since Zeppelin last rock & rolled. After 18 months spent laboring over their new double album, Physical Graffiti, the band has some warming up to do. "It's unfortunate there's got to be anybody there," Plant said. "But we've got to feel our way. There's a lot of energy here this tour. Much more than the last one." The tour's official opening night, January 18th at the Minneapolis Sports Center, went surprisingly well considering the circumstances. Only a week before, Jimmy Page broke the tip of his left ring finger when it was caught in a slamming train door. With only one rehearsal to perfect what Page calls his "three-and-a-half-finger technique," the classic Zeppelin live pieces, "Dazed and Confused" and "Since I've Been Loving You," were definitely retired. Codeine tablets and Jack Daniel's deadened the pain enough for Page to struggle through the band's demanding three-hour set.

Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin's manager and president of Swan Song, the group's recording company, found those first few dates strange: "A Led Zeppelin concert without "Dazed and Confused" is something I'll have to get used to. In a lot of ways that number is the band at its very best. There's one point in the song where Pagey can take off and do whatever he wants to. There is always the uncertainty of whether it will be five or 35 minutes long."

Page reacted to his injury with quiet desperation. "I have no doubt the tour is going to be good, it's just, dammit, I'm disappointed that I can't do all I can do." He began beating a fist quietly into the palm of his crippled hand. "I always want to do my very best and it's frustrating to have something hold me back in the set the very second I'm able to play it. We may not be brilliant for a few nights, but we'll always be good."

The tour progressed satisfactorily through three nights at the Chicago Stadium and visits to Cleveland and Indianapolis until Plant came down with the flu. A show in St. Louis was postponed until mid-February and while Plant stayed behind to convalesce, the band flew to Los Angeles for a day off.

The rest sparked a shift into second gear and subsequent concerts in Greensboro, Detroit and Pittsburgh progressively improved, leading up to Led Zeppelin's tumultuous New York victory and the first version of "Dazed and Confused" on the tour. In the meantime, there was little of the savage hotel-room-splintering road fever Zeppelin is known for. "There hasn't been much room," said drummer John (Bonzo) Bonham a little sadly. "The music has taken up most of our concerns."

It was in late 1968 that Jimmy Page first put together the band that was to become Led Zeppelin. The name was suggested by Who drummer Keith Moon, and embodies an irony that hardly needs to be commented upon. Page first approached Robert Plant, then the lead singer for a raucous Birmingham group called the Band of Joy. "His voice," said Page, "was too great to be undiscovered. All I had to do from there was to find a bassist and a drummer."

The latter came easily. Plant suggested Bonham, the drummer from the Band of Joy. Bassist John Paul Jones was the last to join. "I answered a classified ad in Melody Maker," he said. "My wife made me." Jones had a sessionman's background. He had arranged some of the Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Requests album. He also arranged albums for producer Mickey Most's stable. "I arranged albums by Jeff Beck, Lulu, Donovan and Herman's Hermits."

All four members used the word "magic" when recalling Led Zeppelin's first rehearsal. "I've never been so turned on in my life," says Plant. "Although we were all steeped in blues and R&B, we found out in the first hour and a half that we had our own identity."