Includes: Dazed and Confused, Bring It On Home, Heartbreaker, Since I've Been Loving You, Bron-yr-Aur, Since I've Been Loving You, Organ solo / Thank You, Moby Dick, How Many More Times, Whole Lotta Love, Communication Breakdown, (+ another encore)
Led Zeppelin's first date in June brought them to Iceland participating in a cultural exchange program representing the UK. Peter Grant did not travel with them and mentions in the UK press that a film crew would document their visit. Despite this plan, only local news footage captures the group's arrival at the airport, hotel and short clip of Dazed and Confused. Robert Plant is also interviewed on the day of the show. Some of this news footage is included on the 2003 official dvd.
Press Review excerpt: (Translated to English): When the hour came, went they place on the stage. Plant, like a lion with gilded mane, toned, young and elegant. He was dressed in a shirt, black with golden threads and very tight jeans. Adjacent to Plant, were two princes: Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Page, dressed in blue velvet, Jones in a white robe and green velvet trousers.
Plant offered a nice evening and began dramatically. It was short, powerful and clean sound of Zeppelin. Plant, thereafter, thanked for having this opportunity, to those who have made this possible to have had been asked to play in Iceland. He said they would start with a song off their first album, and next song would be: "Dazed and Confused ".
Behind John Paul Jones on the bass, was John Bonham at the drums, along with Page and Plant. Despair, suffering and grief interpreted a man's voice and guitar. Page played guitar with long bow and it was amazing to listen how he created the mood and let each one attack. His game this evening was beautiful. He moved about the stage and had enjoyed playing far to the right, for photographers. The boy in him was great, he laughed, hopping around. However, when he played a most impressive solo guitar, music reached him and he threw his head back, bent back and played to death and soul. The same was true with Plant - he threw himself into it & therefore had many fine scenes. He was the contact between the audience. Rarely (or even never) has a man been so strong - and how good musicians John Paul Jones and John Bonham are.
Bonham performed a clean, magnificent solo on drums, first with sticks and then with bare hands. Jones, however, was in the shadows the whole evening. On bass, he was very effective and played the organ, which was gorgeous. Zeppelin played quite a few songs in the Hall for almost two hours. When they were ready to play the last song, announced Plant, this was a big mistake on his part, because a group of those who were closest to the stage, rose up and thrust closer. It was absolute chaos. The crowd in front of the stage were getting crushed and some near suffocation. Plant himself went to try and help those who were in the worst straits. The music stopped and when things finally calmed down, playing resumed.
Songs they played included "Thank you", "Heartbreaker" "Bring it on Home", Moby Dick" and more. They played one song from the next album, they worked on the last two months and should be released in late July. It was named "Since I've been Loving You". They ended with "Whole Lotta Love". [Timinn / 6-24-70 / Baldvin Baldvinss]
Led Zeppelin's first date in June brought them to Iceland participating in a cultural exchange program representing the UK. Peter Grant did not travel with them and mentions in the UK press that a film crew would document their visit. Despite this plan, only local news footage captures the group's arrival at the airport, hotel and short clip of Dazed and Confused. Robert Plant is also interviewed on the day of the show. Some of this news footage is included on the 2003 official dvd.
Press Review excerpt: (Translated to English): When the hour came, went they place on the stage. Plant, like a lion with gilded mane, toned, young and elegant. He was dressed in a shirt, black with golden threads and very tight jeans. Adjacent to Plant, were two princes: Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Page, dressed in blue velvet, Jones in a white robe and green velvet trousers.
Plant offered a nice evening and began dramatically. It was short, powerful and clean sound of Zeppelin. Plant, thereafter, thanked for having this opportunity, to those who have made this possible to have had been asked to play in Iceland. He said they would start with a song off their first album, and next song would be: "Dazed and Confused ".
Behind John Paul Jones on the bass, was John Bonham at the drums, along with Page and Plant. Despair, suffering and grief interpreted a man's voice and guitar. Page played guitar with long bow and it was amazing to listen how he created the mood and let each one attack. His game this evening was beautiful. He moved about the stage and had enjoyed playing far to the right, for photographers. The boy in him was great, he laughed, hopping around. However, when he played a most impressive solo guitar, music reached him and he threw his head back, bent back and played to death and soul. The same was true with Plant - he threw himself into it & therefore had many fine scenes. He was the contact between the audience. Rarely (or even never) has a man been so strong - and how good musicians John Paul Jones and John Bonham are.
Bonham performed a clean, magnificent solo on drums, first with sticks and then with bare hands. Jones, however, was in the shadows the whole evening. On bass, he was very effective and played the organ, which was gorgeous. Zeppelin played quite a few songs in the Hall for almost two hours. When they were ready to play the last song, announced Plant, this was a big mistake on his part, because a group of those who were closest to the stage, rose up and thrust closer. It was absolute chaos. The crowd in front of the stage were getting crushed and some near suffocation. Plant himself went to try and help those who were in the worst straits. The music stopped and when things finally calmed down, playing resumed.
Songs they played included "Thank you", "Heartbreaker" "Bring it on Home", Moby Dick" and more. They played one song from the next album, they worked on the last two months and should be released in late July. It was named "Since I've been Loving You". They ended with "Whole Lotta Love". [Timinn / 6-24-70 / Baldvin Baldvinss]
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Press Excerpt (2) : The first note leapt from the stage into the hall at half past eleven. The last note came the same way at half past one. Between these two notes, two hours passed, two long hours, trampled by Led Zeppelin, the band, the music, the ravishment of youth.
Almost five thousand young people were in the Hall. The floor downstairs in the hall was packed, and the same was true of the stands. The first guests began waiting in front of the Hall's doors at eight o'clock in the evening, but they did not start letting people into the house until half past nine. The audience, who had been waiting at the door for an hour and a half, waited sitting on the floor of the hall up by the stage for another hour. They did all this to be able to sit as close to the stage as possible while the band played. Led Zeppelin took the stage at half past ten and immediately began their set. The noise was not as loud as people had feared. At the front of the hall, up by the stage, there was some noise, but not unbearable. But as the crowd moved back into the hall, the noise level decreased, and it was only relatively comfortable at the back of the hall. Led Zeppelin's amplifier system was about 1700 watts, of which the vocal system was 900 watts, but despite all this power, the noise never rose to an uncomfortable level.
Led Zeppelin has never turned the volume up more than necessary. —One of the band's assistants specializes in sound control, sits at two sound consoles and controls the volume of each individual instrument. The songs that Led Zeppelin performed were mostly well-known from the band's albums, Led Zeppelin 1 and 2, but the band also performed a few new songs, which are expected to be on the third major album. Although the audience was interested in all the music the band performed, the greatest excitement was when the band performed its best-known songs: "Heartbreaker", "How Many More Times", "Whole Lotta Love" and others.
Jimmy Page conjured the most amazing tones from the guitar with the help of a violin bow. At times it seemed that he was playing the violin, but the next moment it was as if two guitarists were competing for the audience's favor. Here, the audience was introduced to a completely new side of the genius Jimmy Page's playing, perhaps the most remarkable and entertaining, and that's saying a lot. It was in the song "Dazed And Confused", that Jimmy played these incredible tricks, but the whole song was actually built up of all kinds of amazing sounds from Jimmy's guitar.
The exciting singer, Robert Plant, played the harmonica in the song "Bring It On Home" and got the audience to clap along to his playing. Robert has a very entertaining stage presence, running back and forth on stage, swinging the microphone around him and shaking his head in an exciting way. He quickly won the favor of the young people, most of whom, before the sound effects, were most interested in Jimmy Page. But Robert is not just a singer, he can also sing calm songs with emotion, which is actually exciting too, after all. He has a wide vocal range, a strong voice and can squeeze the most incredible screams out of his throat.
The quiet bassist, John Paul Jones, was the least noticeable of the group. Like so many other bassists, he is quiet and doesn't make much of a fuss. He just plays his bass, which he does very well, better than any other foreign bassist I can remember visiting Iceland. The same can be said for the other members of Led Zeppelin, they are all among the best in their field, and certainly the best to have ever visited the country. John Paul played a solo on the Hammond organ, an introduction to the song "Thank you", and showed remarkable skill and talent. He has certainly had a greater influence on the band's musical performance than people generally think.
Bare-handed drummer John Bonham has been considered the hardest-hitting drummer in the business, and that's no exaggeration. He took a long drum solo on "Moby Dick," a song to start with, but then threw them away and beat the drums with his hands. This greatly impressed the audience, as the drum solo was no joke. The speed and technique were great, so great that people could hardly believe their ears and eyes. John Bonham uses a very large bass drum, sitting half-hidden behind it, so that the audience often finds it difficult to see him play. He uses one of five "cymbals" one of which is enormously large of Chinese origin. —It's as if there are ten people playing all of this together.
The guitar playing is exactly as people would expect: Excellent. There is not much more to say, because Jimmy has long since proven that he is one of the best guitarists in the world. However, there was one thing that I didn't find particularly impressive. It was his solo on the acoustic guitar.
When the band had played for an hour and a quarter, singer Robert Plant said: "This is our last song, 'How Many More Times'." The band probably intended to take a break after this song and then continue the concert. However, the teenagers interpreted this sentence as if the concert was coming to an end, and so everyone jumped up:
Now was the last chance to make some noise, to get excited a bit. It was inevitable that people would get a bit excited at a concert by one of the most famous bands in the world, not least since the ticket cost 450 kronor. Everyone who was sitting on the floor got up and pushed their way to the stage. Those who were at the forefront of the crowd were squeezed between the stage and the group behind, and Zeppelin's helpers had to pull several teenage girls out of the crowd and carry them out into the corridor behind the stage. There they quickly calmed down and were not harmed.
Police officers crowded onto the stage and tried to get the teenagers to move back, but it didn't work until the band had finished their set and left the stage. Sveinn R. Haukisson, the festival's ticket manager, tried to calm the teenagers down and eventually succeeded, getting them to sit back down on the floor. The band then returned to the stage and performed three more songs in one set: "Whole Lotta Love", "Communications Breakdown" and one new song.
The teenagers were the quietest during the performance. After the concert, the stars rested for a while in the dressing room, but then headed out to Hotel Saga in a police car. The Zeppelins had the most fun of it all.
When looking at the concert as a whole, it is impossible to say anything other than that they were the most satisfactory. Led Zeppelin is indisputably among the best bands in the world, its members are all among the best in their field, and the music is in the same vein. Therefore, we must hope that some progress will now be made on these band visits to Iceland. [Morgunblad / (24.06.1970)]
Includes: Dazed and Confused, Bring It On Home, Heartbreaker, Since I've Been Loving You, Bron-yr-Aur, Organ solo / Thank You, Moby Dick, How Many More Times, Communication Breakdown, Whole Lotta Love.