Playing a gig is a terrifying ordeal.
You must play all the right notes, in all the right order. You must account for the location you are in, making each crowd feel like they are part of something special. You must lay it all out on the floor, whether you have the energy to or not. You must exude charisma. You must come away unscathed, ready to do it all again the next day.
One man who is skilled in all of the necessary criteria is Robert Plant, the frontman of the iconic hard rock band Led Zeppelin. Famously, he attempted to sum up the unique experience of performing for thousands with the quote, “It’s sort of a feeling of power onstage. It’s really the ability to make people smile, or just to turn them one way or another for that duration of time, and for it to have some effect later on. I don’t really think it’s power… It’s the goodness.”
However, things aren’t always imbued with this “goodness”; nerves can complicate matters, even for someone as skilled in the matter as Plant. In 1982, the fresh-faced frontman gave a cheeky interview with the BBC, in which he unveiled the gig that scared him the most.
When asked if there was a worst gig they had ever played, Plant laughed about gigs they turned up at “three hours after they were due to start.” But, he added, “When we played Knebworth in 1979, I don’t think I’ve ever been so petrified in my life. And it was such an honour to have that many people there, but you got that feeling of what people would expect; 190,000 people, or something like that.”
He reminisced, three years on from the show, adding, “You walked on stage and you thought there was no way that you could come up with it. But after about 20 minutes, it was there.”
There are several reasons why this is the case. After the tragic and untimely death of Plant’s son, the band had not played live since 1977. They hadn’t performed in the UK specifically since 1975; in fact, these two concerts across two days would become Led Zeppelin’s final performances in the UK, following the death of their drummer, John Bonham, in 1980. There was a lot to play for.
Fans were desperate to get in. In this day and age, we might see sturdy IKEA tents popping up in orderly rows outside of Wembley when a huge artist, like Billie Eilish, comes to play. But that had nothing on the Led Zeppelin fans who could sense that a historic music moment was brewing.
Five days before the first of the two shows, two dozen or so fans were camping near the site. The night before, 30,000 people assembled in an attempt to bag a great view for the upcoming day. At 3:30am, the organisers were forced to let them all into the grounds after the gate was reached for the third time. 18 hours later, Led Zeppelin launched into ‘The Song Remains The Same’. The rest, as they say, was history.
