Led Zeppelin Concert Memories: Greensboro Coliseum, May 31, 1977

“We have seen the gods.  Now we can die.”

The date was May 31,1977.  It was just past midnight.

Along with about 17,000 other hard rock fans with ringing ears, Robert and Tim Miller and I were walking out of the Greensboro Coliseum.  We had just seen a three-hour long concert by Led Zeppelin.   

I love listening to rock music and hearing it live.   Picking my second most memorable or greatest concert would be difficult.  I’ve been lucky to have seen dozens of shows across the span of my sixty-four years, including Zep, The Who, Black Sabbath, Queen, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Priest, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Scorpions, Uriah Heep, ZZ Top, Motley Crue, Eric Clapton, Kiss, Bad Company, Kansas and Boston.

People who know me and know how much I love Rush, who I saw about two dozens times over the course of about 40 years, will raise their eyebrows when I say that the greatest concert I have ever seen was that Zeppelin show in my hometown in 1977.   On the other hand, most of those people will also show some understanding.   We’re talking one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all-time, and arguably the greatest hard rock band ever.   

Every generation has arguments about which artists are the greatest.  In the fifties, Elvis ruled.  In the sixties, Jimi Hendrix not only lit his guitar on fire, he lit the world on fire on his way to becoming the greatest guitarist who ever stood on a stage.   Nevertheless, it was The Beatles that shook and conquered the world.   

The British Invasion was on.   After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, the Rolling Stones moved up to the top spot, helped by being introduced as “greatest rock and roll band in the world.”   I remember hearing that in mid-70s, and thinking something like — we Zep fans beg to differ. 

Part of our argument centered on our belief that Page was the greatest guitarist, Bonham the best drummer, Plant the best singer, and Jones the best bassist.   That is certainly subjective, but Google — greatest rock and roll guitarist/drummer/singer/bassist — and see what you get. 

On a trip in the early 1970s, Mom and Dad took me and my younger sister to Washington to see her aunt and uncle and family.   With a gleam in his eye, my cousin took me to his room, closed the door, and began playing Sabbath’s “Master of Reality.”   

In the mid to late 60’s, when feel good, three-minute songs ruled the AM airwaves, my brother had corrupted me by playing the Doors and the Stones on his reel to reel.  Listening to Black Sabbath for the first time  was something more.  My whole mind and body felt something very powerful.   Although the words were not in our vocabulary yet, I was entering the realm of hard rock and heavy metal.

The crazy thing about Led Zeppelin (or maybe not) is that the band’s management decided to not release singles.  Nevertheless, fans bought and played their vinyl albums, and some FM radio DJ’s began playing what became known as “Album Oriented Rock.”   By the mid-70s, Zep was filling up venues in numbers like no other act before.   

In our world of mega large venues, bands and acts, including the Stones, have set single performance attendance records with six digits, whopping figures that blew past Zeppelin’s high watermark.   Ultimately, however, we should judge performance by what was done in its time.  A month before the Greensboro show in 1977, 76,229 fans had filled the Silverdome in Detroit to see Zeppelin, a jaw-dropping figure that stood as a record for a number of years.   

Robert, Tim and I, were part of a sold-out crowd at the Greensboro show.   It’s hard to know if Coliseum Manager James Oshust (1970 – 1985) kept his own list of top acts he had brought to the arena.   He certainly had a lot to choose from.  In the 1970s and into the 80s, the Greensboro Coliseum was the main stop for touring bands, perfectly situated halfway between Atlanta and Washington.   As a big fan of live music, I took full advantage of that golden era.   We lived just two miles from the Coliseum.  

Concert-wise, the stars aligned for me in ’77.   Before turning my sagging life around by joining the Air Force in February 1978, I had money in my pocket from working odd jobs and was living at home.   In the summer of 1975, I had seen my first concert.   On the strength of their Number One hit, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” as well as FM staples, “Let it Ride” and “Taking Care of Business,” Bachman Turner Overdrive headlined at the Coliseum.   I can still feel the excitement of stepping into that wonderful new world of sight, sound and spectacle, all the hands clapping, and as the BTO song says, “candles in the air” (and what was that sweet smell drifting around?)

In a span of just four months in ‘77 (February to May), Robert, Tim and I saw, at the Greensboro Coliseum, ZZ Top, Boston, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin.   Boston was hotter than the firecrackers fans lit during concerts back then.   Their eponymous debut album would eventually sell 17M copies.   We saw them right when they were breaking out from back-up to headliners filling the biggest arenas.   

“More than a Feeling” was their smash hit, but every song on the album could have been a hit.   Those are the kind of shows you remember.   The band members are making a lot of eye contact, all that joy before the grind of touring does its damage.

Back in the day, concert promoters employed the standard practice of “festival seating.”   Sounds like a picnic in the park.  Oh, no.  Things could get ugly and fans got injured.   With some exceptions, the widespread practice eventually ended.   Ever so sadly, it took a terrible tragedy in 1979, the loss of 11 lives at The Who concert in Cincinnati, to show the world just how crazy the practice was.   

Anyway, we were oblivious to what happened outside the Coliseum ’77 show, but news reports I have now read tell of broken fences and rowdy behavior.   We must have held back and waited until the crush ended.   That meant we didn’t get up close to the stage, but being about 15 rows back and on the floor wasn’t too shabby.   And we didn’t get crushed like we did for the Boston show, where I was lifted off the ground. 

Almost all rock concerts in those days had one or more support acts.   That’s how up and coming bands got noticed.  I remember seeing five young lads from Britain in 1980 at the Coliseum, a band named Def Leppard that would go on to sell a few albums themselves.   The kids warmed up for the up and coming Scorpions and wild man Ted Nugent.   No one ever blew Nugent off the stage, but Robert and I saw Van Halen blow the doors off Boston in Raleigh in 1978 (remember the flying empty beer cups?)

Zep’s 1977 tour, billed as “An Evening with Zeppelin, was them and only them.  The term itself spoke to the band’s lofty status.   They had started the practice of “no support” around 1972, when their concerts had turned into three-hour affairs.  Of all the shows I saw back then, only Zep was a solo affair.

Rock musicians are not known for their compliance with rules and norms.   But when it comes to concerts, they know that show time is a sacred time.    Almost every rock concert I have ever seen has started on time.   That night, show time (8 pm) came.   Zep had only played Greensboro one other time (1975), a show I did not see.   The crowd was primed and ready for the magical moment when the lights go down.   

Only this time, they didn’t.   

As the first few minutes went by, I’m sure we were thinking, ok, no biggie, the band is just a little late.   Twenty long minutes later, we were all dying from the worry the show would be cancelled.   And after that, who knew?  Maybe no return appearance (as things turned out, this was their final tour of North America). 

Thirty minutes turned to forty, an eternity.  We might have been thinking —  So this is what purgatory feels like.   

It’s my thought that had it been any other band, the crowd would have reigned down a chorus of boos.   We certainly had every right to.   But as best as I can remember, we didn’t boo, because you don’t boo the gods.

Finally, the lights went down.  17,000 delirious fans started breathing again and roared in approval.   The band tore into “The Song Remains the Same.”    

My memories of the show have faded, but one can now fill in the gaps at the Zep website with reviews and comments, and newspaper reports.   I do recall Plant greeted us after the first song, and apologized for being late.   He said they would make up for it by playing a lot of songs.   These days you can’t get away with something like that because everyone knows the set lists and length of shows.   Having said, that, their three-hour show was without intermission.   I don’t remember any other band playing that way.   From 1997 to 2016, Rush played about three hours, but always took a 20-minute break.

I can’t remember Zep’s setlist, but one can now look it up on the web.   They had put out seven albums so we benefitted from that.   The band would release just one more studio album, 1978’s “In Through the Out Door.”   

My favorite Zep songs are Kashmir, Whole Lotta Love, and one you might have heard of — Stairway to Heaven.  They played all of them and a total of 19.    

With Led Zeppelin, their concert was more than just a collection of songs.   They were maestros.   As one writer has said, Robert Plant had “the whole package as a frontman — a tremendous vocal range, flowing rock star locks, and magnetism for miles.”   Page held court with a mesmerizing extended solo with his bow string during “Dazed and Confused.”   Only a fool took a bath room break during John Bonham’s drum solo, and John Paul Jones and his keyboards had the stage during “No Quarter.”    

I wish I did have more memories.  I do remember at one point Plant took a break by sitting down on one of the stacks of speakers.  Every other musician I ever saw who took a break went backstage.   In my book, Plant earned some serious respect that way.   

The late Jerry Kenion reviewed the show in the Greensboro Daily News.   We offer the following snippets of her write up.

Jimmy Page, his thin frame covered in white satin… John Bonham’s drums help put the heavy into the heavy metal sound… laser beams crossed the stage creating a hazy green screen for the rising smoke… the fog machines cranked up to give the appearance that John Paul Jones was floating on a cloud. 

What constitutes a great concert means different things to different people.   Neil Peart has written that each Rush tour would bring just a handful of magical shows.   For most fans, just seeing the band play is magical.   I’ve read nit-picks of a show I had just attended, a critique that made me wonder if we were at the same show. 

Nevertheless, we all find shortcomings.   I can point out some with shows I have seen.   I saw Deep Purple with the Fab Five lineup headline the 1985 Knebworth concert.  Great show at a storied outdoor venue, but it rained so much the concert was dubbed “Mudworth.”   And, get this.  There was an insane rumor going around Ritchie Blackmore did not want to play “Smoke on the Water” (they did).

I saw Black Sabbath, but it was at the god-awful sounding Fayetteville Coliseum and wasn’t with Ozzy (loved Ronnie James Dio all the same).  I saw The Who, but it wasn’t with Keith Moon (still a great concert).   I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but the memories are bittersweet.   Just five months later, tragedy struck when Van Zant, Gaines and a backup singer were killed in the crash of their chartered plane.  I saw Kiss in 1976, a killer show, but we sat in the nose bleed seats.  By the way, don’t get me wrong.  All those were awesome shows.

With the Zeppelin show we saw, there was the painful long delay.  But everything else was so right about it.  We sang happy birthday to “Bonzo,” and felt something very powerful when Page picked the first notes of Stairway to Heaven.   

In 2014, music journalist Lisa Robinson wrote, “There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll.”   Robinson had full access to Led Zeppelin for a number of years and spends more than two dozen pages on what she saw.  In 2014, the author promoted her book at Politics and Prose here in Washington, DC.  I told her about seeing them and the unheard of forty minute wait.   

Echoing what many others have said, Robinson said by that time, the band was going downhill.   Many a journalist has written about “the monster that was Led Zeppelin.”   Page and Bonham drank heavily.   John Paul Jones would later say he was sick of life on the road.   Manager Peter Grant was a bully.    Zep weren’t the first band to become a train wreck, but all this made them easy targets for their critics.     

But for Robert, Tim and I, ignorance was bliss.   All we knew was the mighty Zep was coming to our home town and we scored tickets.    

The previous September, the band had released, “The Song Remains the Same,” a double live album from the best of three shows at Madison Square Garden during their 1973 tour.   I read now that,  “a number of critics consider it to be over-produced and lumbering.”   You’ll have to excuse me, for I can only chuckle on that one.  From our perspective, it was all good.    

Three months later, Zep released “The Song Remains the Same,” the movie of the same name.   Robert and I went and saw the flick at the Janus Theatre in Greensboro.   Once again, reviews aren’t flattering.   For us, however, just being able to see a hard rock band on the big screen was an utter and rare delight.   

You have to understand that in the 1970s, before MTV came along, there was very little hard rock music on TV.   I remember staying up past midnight to watch Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert (Zeppelin never appeared).  As a form of mental torture, I had to keep the volume down low as to not wake up my Mom and sister.   

As seen by this ad in the Greensboro Daily News (July 1985), TV programmers continued to push aside hard rock music.   

With some bands, the fans get to see them a long time.  The Stones are quite amazing that way, and Rush kept things top-notch for almost 40 years.  Blue Oyster Cult has played over, wait for it, 3,000 shows.     

But for many bands, the fire burns out too soon.   Just a few weeks after the Greensboro show, Robert Plant’s five-year old son died.   Bonham slipped away three summers later.

When things like that take place, bands face the tough decision of replacing an original member.   Some make the change and keep going.   

Led Zeppelin did not.   They were the gods, and we saw them.  

Led Zeppelin Concert Memories: Greensboro, North Carolina, May 31st 1977

From ledzepconcerts.com

Since its now been 30 years to the day since I saw Zeppelin in the Greensboro Coliseum, I thought what better time to recount my memories (however eroded by the years they are) and reminisce. I’ll have to say, that really was a long time ago and at best my recollection is fairly hazy but I’ll give it a try. By the way, if there are others that were there that night in Greensboro, N.C. , I would love to hear your stories too.

But, over the years, the finer details tend to slip away and what is left are some random, disjointed thoughts (uh, did I say dis-joint-ed?). I can tell you that at 18 years old, your world is quite different than it is today, so needless to say, so were my priorities 30 years ago.

My brother and I had about an hour and a half drive to the show that night, but I don’t remember too much about the trip to G’boro. Pretty crowded outside the gated area. I do remember a rush to get in and some people attempting (and I suppose succeeding) to climb the fence when they let us in. I’m not sure how all that came about…it could have been more that the swell of the crowd had a lot to do with them letting us in.

One thing that was very clear, and still remains clear to this day, was the mass of people moving into the concert hall. You really didn’t need to walk forward …the crowd pushed and literally carried you with it. At that point in my life, never experienced anything like it. No control of your own movement at all. Pretty much a wall of humanity surging forward. If anyone had fallen, it would have been impossible to get up. Maybe we were just lucky in that regard, maybe just lucky that we didn’t end up like the fans in Cincinatti at the Who concert about 2 years later. Its funny that you often don’t realize how dangerous something is in the moment…just later on when you are in a normal state of mind. Another memory I have is that the walls in the hallways leading to the concert area were dripping with condensation…..really strange and surreal. I suppose all the heat and moisture from the mass of people moving thru. Just strange.

In the concert arena we had pretty good seats. This was in the days of festival seating and general admission….. no seats assigned…. just get in there and find what you can close to the stage. If you were lucky (or maybe unlucky…I’llget to that later) you could get down to the floor in front of the stage. Our seats were to the left of the dtage, about mid-way up on the lower level. I heard that thi was the last concert that Greensboro coliseum had festival seating…for a lot of good reasons.

Seemed like forever before Zep took the stage at least an hour and a half…running late or something like that…but I understand that was more the norm. Before the show…lot of partying all around….seemed like there was not much security that I recall. People smoking up and passing around the reefer…. I counted at least a dozen times a joint was passed down our row…. it was the 70’s what can I say. All the trappings of the 70’s concert scene for sure… clothing, or lack thereof too!! The land of long hair, tight jeans, and no bras!! I remember one guy looking just like Plant, a virtual clone… you couldn’t tell them a part…

Back to the show…. Zep comes out about an hour or hour and a half late… Plant says “Good Evening Greensboro” and they launch into Song Remains the Same….really rock it up….. played the intro of the Rover and then went into Sick Again…great stuff, lots of stuff off of Physical Graffiti, some stuff off of Presence too. I remember Nobody’s Fault but Mine and Achilles….., don’t have the set list, although I’ve searched the Web for it, I couldn’t find anything. If anyone has it, would like to see.

Did I mention the volume of this show? Damn. I mean damn was it loud!!! When Page was soloing during Dazed, he used this violin bow and it could have shredded the paint off the walls!!! My ears were hurting…hate to admit it, but I had to cover them during a part of that solo!! The visual stuff was good too….laser pyramid and such….. this was back in the 70’s but still pretty high tech for then. Another thing was when Page used this synthesizer thing like a moog or something during Whole Lotta Love…. made some really weird effects with that thing….pretty cool for back in the day…. by the way, I was working that summer and the next day, my hearing was shot all to hell. It took a couple of days to get back to hearing right again.

From the show, I would have to say Kashmir was excellent, Stairway, Ten Years Gone, No Quarter, Rock n Roll. I really liked the acoustic set too… a nice change of pace too. All in all, they played about 3 hours including the encore and Bonham’s drum solo in the middle. Speaking of the drum solo, Bonham’s drum set rotated outward and I think some people may have gotten hurt that were next to the stage….not sure about that though.

Other recollection…. some people on the upper deck had linked their belts together and were lowering themselves down to the lower level. Think one chain of these broke too. As I said, not a lot of security around that I remember.

That’s about it. Great show. One of the best ever been too. If you care to share, I would love to hear. It may even jog my memory!!! Thanks for the opportunity to share my experience 30 years ago tonight!!!