40 Years Have Passed Since Led Zeppelin's 1975 North America Tour

One of our most popular items here at Rocker Rags is a Led Zeppelin t-shirt that says An Evening With Led Zeppelin 1975. It's one of our biggest sellers from the moment we put it up on the website, and it's also one of our most Pinned items on Pinterest. 

This week (the week of January 19, 2015) marks the 40th anniversary of Led Zeppelin embarking on their 1975 North American Tour. This particular set of concerts saw a change in priorities for the band, as they put more emphasis into the stage production utilizing an elaborate light show complete with lasers. All of Led Zeppelin's previous concerts really let the music dominate rather than have any sort of sophisticated stage show. However, by 1975, Led Zeppelin were the biggest rock band in the world, and they wanted their concerts to reflect that status.

In spite of this, the shows started off fairly tumultuously. The 38-date tour formally began on Jan. 18 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, MN, and right before their departure to the US, Jimmy Page broke his left ring finger - a crucial appendage for a guitar player. Immediately after this January 18 performance, Robert Plant got a bad flu and as soon as he started to feel better, drummer John Bonham fell ill to a stomach disorder. However, while the shows were less than stellar, by March 1975, everybody was feeling better and Jimmy's finger was pretty much back in full use.The shows that followed, especially the ones on the West Coast, are considered by many to be the best concerts Led Zeppelin ever performed.

This tour concluded on March 27, 1975 at the famous Forum in Los Angeles. The band then shipped everything off to the UK for a 5 night stint at Earl's Court in London and was expected to return to America for another leg of the tour. However, that never occurred because Robert Plant was injured in a car accident while in Greece. The band didn't return until 1977 for their famous United States of America 1977 Tour.