Hear Led Zeppelin’s First Recorded Concert Ever (1968)

It’s Decem­ber, 1968. You’re a teenaged kid in Spokane, Wash­ing­ton, keen to see Vanil­la Fudge—or “The Vanil­la Fudge,” as the pro­mot­er calls them—at Gonza­ga University’s Kennedy Pavil­ion, and… what’s this? The open­ing act is “Len Zef­flin?” Who the hell is that?

Maybe you’re hip, like Bob Gal­lagher, who knew Jim­my Page from the Yard­birds and looked for­ward to catch­ing his new band. Maybe not. Maybe, like Ker­ry Whit­sitt, you’re hop­ing “the first band wouldn’t stay on stage too long.” You know how it is… open­ing bands….

But then Page, Plant, Bon­ham, and Jones take the stage, and like Jeff “Tor” Nadeau, you look around to find the house “uni­ver­sal­ly mind-blown” by “the most stun­ning and awe­some sound ever.” And like Ker­ry, you don’t “want them to leave the stage—ever!”

These then-teenage fans’ rem­i­nisces of this his­toric show, only the fifth of Led Zeppelin’s first U.S. tour, come cour­tesy of the Zep­pelin web­site’s descrip­tion of the mis­tak­en­ly billed “Len Zefflin”’s ear­li­est record­ed con­cert, which you can hear in its entire­ty above, thanks to an enter­pris­ing young stu­dent who brought his tape recorder.

The band’s first album—Led Zep­pelin—wouldn’t hit stores for anoth­er three weeks. The kids haven’t heard any­thing like this before: Bonham’s explo­sive fills, Plant’s high-pitched har­mo­niz­ing to “Page’s pipe-wrench riffs.” By the time Zep­pelin left the stage, Bob Gal­lagher and his bud­dies were “flab­ber­gast­ed.” And “when Vanil­la Fudge came on, they were so sleepy. It was like, after that, psy­che­delia was dead and heavy met­al was born, all in a three-hour show.” Poor Vanil­la Fudge.

The raw, two-track tape record­ing of that frigid win­ter show has cir­cu­lat­ed for thir­ty years in var­i­ous boot­leg forms, but it’s new to Youtube, new to me, and maybe new to you too. Lis­ten to it and see if you can’t con­jure some of those lucky audi­ence-mem­bers’ awe in that moment of dis­cov­ery, when heavy met­al was born from the blues. The full track­list of the show is below. For the full expe­ri­ence, see the Youtube page to read a tran­scrip­tion of Robert Plan­t’s between-song stage pat­ter.

01 — Train Kept A Rollin’ [0:00]
02 — I Can’t Quit You [2:32]
03 — As Long As I Have You (incl Fresh Garbage / Shake / Hush) [9:15]
04 — Dazed And Con­fused [17:52]
05 — White Sum­mer [27:43]
06 — How Many More Times (incl The Hunter) [34:31]
07 — Pat’s Delight [50:07]

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Led Zep­pelin Plays One of Its Ear­li­est Con­certs (Dan­ish TV, 1969)

Whole Lot­ta Led Zep­pelin: Live at the Roy­al Albert Hall and The Song Remains the Same–the Full Shows

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.