Press Review: When 18,500 young folks stomp and shout “more” for a full three minutes, a band, exhausted though the players may be, has no choice but to trudge back for an encore.

If Monday night’s Led Zeppelin concert at the new St Paul Civic Center proved anything, it is that Twin Cities rock audiences are no different from any others. The St Paul show sold out in two days,  early in June.

After Monday night, one has to admit that for the most part, all the hoopla is justified, for this was an exciting, well-conceived show, aided in no small part by provocative lighting and staging.

Behind the band stood a set of flat aluminoid reflecting strips. Above the group, an 8-foot mirrored, revolving disc and two prom balls started spinning light at the end of Stairway to Heaven. The audience registered its approval in something near the mega-decibel level.

Detractors of Led Zeppelin, who consider the group more of a limp blimp, might well point to occasionally over-long arrangements with too many climaxes. They might also decry drummer John Bonham’s 20-minute solo. It had fascinating moments, but after five minutes, this listener wanted to lead the cheer, “Take it on home”.

But the total show, filled with material from the group’s five albums, made effective use, in most cases, of climax and pacing with many a dramatic pause enhanced through smooth segues. There is in the band’s best work – when the solos build in a cohesive, dramatic manner – a strong and relentless thrust towards something apocalyptic, whether an insight or a catharsis. It’s a Romantic thrust if there ever was one, implicit in much of the message and mode of rock: The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones. Etc.

As musicians, the men of Led Zeppelin are hard to fault. Guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones create an immensely vital and skillful electric blues background to singer’s Robert Plant’s frenetically powerful vocals.

Among Page’s many fine moments, the best was probably his work during the break in Whole Lotta Love. Jones, alternating all evening between keyboards and bass, contributed some richly evocative organ sounds during what was for this listener the high point of the evening, the ballad Rain Song, from the band’s new album Houses of the Holy. [M.Anthony / Tribune / July 1973]

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Press: Led Zeppelin Concert – The Long Wait To Be First In Line

The first of an anticipated 18,500 rock music fans showed up at the St. Paul Civic Center at 2 a.m. Sunday for a Led Zeppelin concert at 8pm tonight. “There should be 3,000 to 4,000 people here by noon,” said Jim Crabbe, 20 from the lake Minnetonka area. “Everybody is going to be smashed up against the doors by the time the doors open at 6 pm”.

Crabbe is one of five youths, four other young men and a girl, all of the Lake Minnetonka area who have been camped in front of the west entrance to the Civic Center since 2am Sunday.
The reason the group arrived to early is to be assured front row seats. Tickets to the concert are being sold on a first come, first served basis. No reservations have been taken for the $5.50 seats.

“That’s the only way to see a concert”, said Peter Sours, 20. “You have to be right down in front”.

What have they been doing camped on Civic Center concrete for 30 hours?  “Having a good time,” said Crabbe. “We have our music and there’s no hassle so far”. The group was playing contemporary rock blues on an assortment of instruments ranging from a harmonica to guitars, clarinet and violin.

None of those waiting expected any trouble during the concert. “It won’t be like the Stones concert last year”, said Crabbe. “People charged the concert then, they had to use tear gas and it was cut short. But that was the Stones. [-M. Sweeny, 7/73]