ZEP ZAP GERMANS!
by John Bonham

So, here I sit in my room at the Berlin Hilton; at the end of a four-day German tour. German rain falling outside very depressing. Berlin is not the most exhilarating place in the world - some of us went to The Wall today, and that was a real downer.

Although the audience tonight was fine, at the Deutschlandhalle. About 6,000 Berliners came to see us tonight, which is apparently more than have been to the last three rock concerts in this city put together.

Audiences are pretty much the same everywhere, the only difference over here is that they didn't understand our stage announcements too good. You know, like in Essen on the second night, there were no seats in the hall, and the stage was very high, so Robert had to ask the kids at the front to sit down several times. Eventually he did get the message across, and the show got OK towards the end.

We played Cologne the first night, at the Sporthalle. That was nice, and the act built nicely to a climax. We had to do two encores, which set the pattern for the whole tour. Oh, but Frankfurt on Saturday night  was terrific. We played to 11,000 people at the Festhalle, which is something like an all-Germany record audience.

They were really great, listened very hard and kept quiet throughout the act. Which is the way we like it now, as we have introduced some new acoustic songs into the act, from the next album, Led Zeppelin III.

We flew to Dusseldorf last Thursday to start the tour, and used Dusseldorf's Inter-Continental Hotel as a base for the shows at Cologne and Essen. The flight in was a bit ropey. I'm not really the world's greatest flier. but I particularly hate flying in Germany. There always seems to be such a lot of clouds, so much turbulence, and the plane can't ever seem to be able to fly above the weather. But the flight into Berlin is the worst anywhere, as you have to land in the middle of the city, coming in between the buildings. However, it was good to be with the other lads again for a few days, and we had a right old laugh about all those stupid "breaking-up" rumours. No chance.

I did read in one of the papers that Robert "Percy" Plant has been having a slight go at me about all my cars. Well, I'd just like to report that from now on, Percy will be walking to gigs, as I used to drive him everywhere! By the way, I must tell you about a group I saw up at Mothers Club in Birmingham before I came over to Germany - Trapeze. They are definitely one to watch for this year - really tight now that they've reduced to a three piece. [Record Mirror, 7/25/70]