Led Zep’s ’77 Tour

 

 

This past Christmas my younger brother was given the complete Led Zeppelin remastered box set edition of their catalogue from his stepson (and he listened to the CDs on his way to and from Daytona when he went down for Speedweeks last month) and after hearing him talk about the mighty Zeppelin we recounted the much anticipated 1977 Led Zep tour.
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When word was announced they would tour everyone in northeast Ohio and beyond were fired up immediately. Scheduled for the Coliseum in Richfield, OH for two nights, the promoters threw a monkey wrench into the ticket buying process. They decreed that to have a chance to purchase tickets it had to be done by mail order using money orders and the orders had to be postmarked on a selected date in order to have a chance to buy tickets. I think they limited each order to only four (4) tickets per order.
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So the night before tickets were to be accepted Flash and I had purchased several money orders and used our names and addresses as well as various brothers and sisters and drove up to Richfield the night before so we could drop our orders off at the Richfield post office right at midnight. We weren’t the only ones to think of that as there appeared to be a caravan snaking through the small town of Richfield to the post office.
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A couple weeks later we were thrilled when we each received tickets for both nights! We sold the remaining tickets and each kept two for both nights. The first night was April 27, 1977 and we took dates. The second night, April 28, 1977, we went solo with a couple of buddies to raise hell and have fun. We did. Amazing shows! We were extremely happy we were able to see them on two consecutive nights let alone one and I’m glad we did because that was the last chance we had to see Led Zeppelin as it turned out.
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We had procured tickets for the August 9, 1977 show at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh but that was eventually cancelled when Robert Plant’s son passed away at the end of July. When they announced the next tour in 1980 I dutifully ordered tickets but before they could be processed word came out that drummer John Bonham had died. That was the end of Led Zeppelin as we knew them.
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But the Richfield Coliseum shows were outstanding. ‘An Evening With Led Zeppelin’ is seared into my memory banks and I’m glad I had the chance to catch them on that tour. I bought the T-Shirts (one white, one black, both now long gone) as did my brother. He still has his. A number of years ago some company reissued those ’77 t-shirts and while at an area mall once I noticed a young man wearing one who wasn’t even born when that tour happened. As I passed him in a record store I mentioned ‘Nice shirt! I bought mine at a Led Zep concert in ‘77’. He stopped in his tracks and proceeded to grill me for 15 minutes on the band and the Richfield appearances.
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As you may know Led Zep reformed for several concerts in England recently with Jason Bonham on drums. They may or may not do a USA tour (a local radio station reported last week that Robert Plant was against it) so we’ll see. But if they do, this old man just may make the effort to check them out again.
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If I can get tickets!