Average: 4.9 (950 votes)

May 5, 1973

Tampa, FL US

Tampa Stadium

Setlist:

Rock and Roll, Celebration Day, (Bring It On Home intro) Black Dog, Over the Hills and Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, Rain Song, Dazed and Confused (incl. San Francisco), Stairway to Heaven, Moby Dick, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Let That Boy Boogie), The Ocean, Communication Breakdown.

Notes:

News report:

LED ZEPPELIN BREAKS ATTENDANCE RECORD AS WELL AS AN OLD BARRIER OF SILENCE

Record-breaking tour audiences and grosses have been claimed by a lot of rock groups - Beatles, Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night, Grand Funk Railroad. Now Led Zeppelin is claiming one - biggest audience for one act ever in the United States.

This was May 5 at the Tampa Stadium, the night after the British group started its U.S. tour in Atlanta. Attendance in Tampa was 56,800, with a $309,000 gross. Led Zeppelin is on a 33-concert, 30-city tour during May and July, with June off for vacation, expecting a total gross of $3 million. The quartet performs without an opening act or intermission, for two and a half hours.

But if anybody thinks they're blasé about playing to such a big crowd as in Tampa, 'he's wrong. We spoke later by phone with lead singer Robert Plant in New Orleans. He said, "I think it was the biggest thrill I've had. I pretend - I kid myself — I'm not very nervous in a situation like that. I try to bounce around just like normal.

"But, if you do a proportionate thing, it would be like halt of England's population. "It was a real surprise. Tampa is the last place I would expect to see 60,000 people. It's not the country's biggest city. It was fantastic. One would think it would be very hard to communicate; with 60,000 people some have got to be quite a distance off. There were no movie screens showing us, like in Atlanta. The only thing they could pick on was the complete vibe of what music was being done."

Plant and Page write most of the group's songs. Some are a collaboration of all four. Gold albums have been "Led Zeppelin," "Led Zeppelin II," "Led Zeppelin III" and "Houses of the Holy," Atlantic, the latter being the best-selling album in the U.S. tor the first two weeks of May. The group also has a gold single, "Whole Lotta Love." But singles are not a big item with Led Zeppelin.

"You can't pick up on what we do in three minutes." Plant adds that some people thought the group was heavy, sexy rock from its hit single. "Now I think they realize there is more. They realize we have subtlety and a spectrum. You can't keep sending out heavy rock all the lime.

"Every time we make an album, our musical leanings advance more and more. A person won't be repetitious if he has any artistry at all. It sounds egotistical but I think this group has the most talented musicians in England. Jimmy Page has played backup with innumerable people from Burt Bacharach to the Rolling Stones.

"He is like the father of the group. Bassist John Paul Jones has done arrangements for people who are world-famous. I came roaring out of the blues and drummer John Bonham used to be like me.

“After bashing out infectious rock, we've started to level out into an artistically leaning group. There's been no big hype behind it at all. The music sort of seeped through to people. The first album was sensitive, traditional songs like Joan Baez had done. Since then it has gone from strength to strength. An audience can ever anticipate in advance what our next album will be like.

 "Live, we do a lot of improvising. The numbers will be more or less the same numbers, but what goes on inside, apart from the melody lines, will alter each night. There’s a lot of phrase tossing between drummer, bassist and guitarist and I've been renowned for using my voice as an instrument.

"A lot of groups are too frightened to play away from the track of the records. You see them twice and know exactly what you'll hear the third time. And it's the reason why our group has never changed personnel.

A lot of groups pack it up and form again. There's internal strife because of musical boredom — plugging away at the same old thing. We stay creative: I think that is exactly what we're known for." (A.P. - May 1973)

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Submit your personal review of a particular show you attended, updates, corrections, etc., which will be considered for addition to the official online archive.You may also contact the webmaster at: webmaster@ledzeppelin.com

The 5/5/73 show in Tampa, Florida

First of all it was the best rock concert I had ever been to in my life up to that time. They sold 56.800 tickets to the show at $ 5.00 each and then once the stadium officials started turning people away after announcing that the show was sold out, around 4,000 plus more people jumped over the 8 foot tall wall around the stadium and got in for free. So there were actually over 60,000 people in the stadium for the show. The band performed fantastically. The crowd was in awe for most of the show. They played for almost 4 hours straight with NO opening act. The only break that Robert, Jimmy, and Jonesy, got was during Bonzo's amazing drum solo during Moby Dick. At the end of Stairway to Heaven they released a couple of hundred white doves into the air from underneath the front of the stage. That was so cool. During the encore was the first time I had witnessed the thousands of cigarette lighters being hoisted into the air that we now take for granted. The boys were in rare form that night and gave everyone there a memory that we'll never forget. I got to meet Robert Plant in the late 90's while he was in the Tampa / St.Petersberg area on a vacation with his family and asked him if that night had any special meaning for him as I explained that I had been there. He said that he remembered being very nervous about the size of the crowd and how proud he was when he learned toward the end of the show that they had broken the Beatles attendance record for a single act rock concert. He also said that the other members of the band thought it was a very amazing night as well. I also remember that a few days after that show, the album Houses of the Holy went Platinum and it had only been on the charts for about 3 weeks. An awesome time for Rock N' Roll.






Led Zeppelin