Press Review: Fans Finally Loosen Up With Good Old Rock

Led Zeppelin, the four-man demolition squad disguised as a rock group, pushed aside a series of boring solos Monday night and laid out Portland music fans with some good old rock and roll.

Playing to an estimated 7,000 people in the Memorial Coliseum, they plodded along with excessive instrumental solos, repeatedly asking the crowd to loosen up until they heard what they came to hear – loud, driving rock music.

After the feeling in the audience reached across the void to the stage, Led Zeppelin got it on and the fans reacted. Swarming down from everywhere, the police and usherettes could do little more than hope a riot would not break out.

But rock freaks do not riot. They just like to move when they get the urge. Led Zeppelin provided the urge and the crowd moved. No one was hurt, nothing was damaged. It was just a peaceful reaction to a sound they all related to.

Performing many of the tunes from two record albums, Led Zeppelin climaxed the show with a blistering version of How Many More Times. Shining through the other boring solos was a guitar piece Jimmy Page performed with a violin bow. For brief moments, drummer John Bonham’s Moby Dick was virile energy in the best sense of the phrase.

But capping it all was the strutting Robert Plant, writhing, grinding and giving away the dirty blues lines with just the right inflection and gesture.
Considered by many rock critics the latest of rock ‘n roll sex idols, Plant explained why he sings the way he does: “The only thing that makes me do it is that I’m excited about what we play. Had the group been a drag, I would have just stood there all night.”

Led Zeppelin was not a drag and neither Robert Plant nor the audience could sit still all night.  [-S.Smith/Oregon News/3-24-70]