2 shows: 5pm and 8:30pm

Click here to view the 1969 Tour Book

While in Toronto, John Bonham picks up a miniature set of drums for his three year old son Jason: "I've bought him a great set of miniature drums. It's an absolutely perfect replica down to the bass drum pedal and hi-hat. Even I can play them. They are Japanese made and I saw them in a shop in Toronto. They weren't really for sale and were just on display. But I offered them a hundred dollars and bought them." (M.M., Dec. 1969)

-----------------

Press Reviews: The flight of the Led Zeppelin

"Everybody comfortable? 'cos we won't start until you are!"  Showmanship and artistry marked the Led Zeppelin concert at the O'Keefe Centre on Sunday. The surroundings weren't exactly the best for the creation of a relaxed, involved, groovy  audience - but the heavy music in the darkness slowly loosened the crowd and relaxed the people, but never to that point  of uninhibited hysteria that the Zeppelin seem to expect.

Rock is becoming an art - It became very obvious as the Zeppelin took the stage that rock music is now an art which, at peak performance, is experimenting with combinations of electronic sounds and voices. Rock is closest to achieving the function of pop art – in interpreting the industrial environment of machines - and motors to people.

But the Edward Bear, who are supposedly a new and fast-moving Canadian group first disgraced themselves with uncoordinated, loud and clumsy derivative noise. Don't bother about their first album which is to be dumped on the market soon.

Theatre is a large part of the success of a rock concert - the dance of singers and players, exhibiting slim and graceful bodies to the virile music, the element of surprise and old-fashioned carnival showmanship.

After a long and absorbing drum solo called 'Moby Dick' the Led Zeppelin wound up with the last, important component of good rock - audience reaction, as they moved us out of the theatre, still rocking and clapping our hands, the formal and straight atmosphere of the 0' Keefe blown to kingdom come. (by By J. ALBRIGHT, York University, Nov. 5, 1969)

Zeppelins Don't Bomb

At the O'Keefe Centre Sunday afternoon things seemed to be dying a slow and painful death until Led Zeppelin came on stage and took charge — singer Robert Plant wearing snakeskin boots, lead guitar Jimmy Page in shiny brown patent leather boots and shiny mauve pants that looked as though they were sewn right on him, bassist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham, all of them with flowing shoulder length hair. Plant s first comment was, "this is all very Establishment, isn't it", but it was obvious from the start that neither he nor the rest of the group was going to let it bother them.

They broke into "Communication Breakdown" — several thousand watts of music power, a gale of sound organized into thrusting bass lines, shattering chords and hypnotic rhythms and the audience forgot what a down O'- Keefe Centre was.

Jimmy Page was probably playing as well as he ever has, producing dazzling runs and dizzying slides of tremendous drive and force which his four sets of loudspeakers put across with soul-shaking intensity. Robert Plant's personality, expressed through his voice, is equally powerful. He doesn't sing lyrics as much as screams, yells, and moans of pure emotion. Together the two of them strut and dance around the stage, showing off like a pair of roosters.

Led Zeppelin's appeal is hard to pin down, and can really only be experienced live. At first the appeal seems to be based on sex, and the erotic does play an important part. But sex is there only because it is the only emotion basic enough and powerful enough to match the elemental passion of their music. This music is not complicated. It is in fact deliberately simplified in some aspects, using simple chord structures, and often very repetitive. Yet this is necessary to effectively convey its awesome and hypnotic power.

Led Zeppelin gets right to the heart of rock, and this is why their concert was so good. It's man's use of the unlimited power that machines have given him as an extension of his will, applied to music. There may be other groups more musical in a general way than Led Zeppelin, but none with a better understanding of the power of rock, and then they play live nothing, not even O'Keefe Centre, can get in their way. [U of T Varsity, Nov. 7, 1969 – by N. Schmidt]