{"id":332303,"date":"2025-10-25T20:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T20:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332303\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T20:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T20:36:13","slug":"on-this-day-in-1968-led-zeppelin-sort-of-made-their-debut-let-me-explain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332303\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1968, Led Zeppelin (Sort Of) Made Their Debut\u2014Let Me Explain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led Zeppelin<\/a> might have built their reputation on their big, brash, and explosive live sets, but their first concert tour started as more of a whimper than a bang. The band\u2019s inaugural U.K. tour began on October 4, 1968, but they wouldn\u2019t officially become Led Zeppelin until weeks later on October 25. Up until then, promoters billed the band as the New Yardbirds or the Ex-Yardbirds, depending on the venue.<\/p>\n

The night of October 25, Led Zeppelin was playing at the University of Surrey\u2019s Great Hall in Battersea. Event organizers dubbed it \u201cthe first big dance of the term. They paid the band 175 pounds for a 50-minute set. There was a large banner outside of the hall that read<\/a>, \u201cTonight! The Ex-Yardbirds.\u201d There was a small line of text underneath, which read \u201cLed Zeppelin.\u201d It was the band\u2019s first time performing under the moniker under which they would build their rock \u2018n\u2019 roll legacy.<\/p>\n

The band played several songs that would come to define their catalogue, including \u201cDazed & Confused\u201d, \u201cBabe I\u2019m Gonna Leave You\u201d, and \u201cCommunication Breakdown\u201d.<\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin Decided on a Name Change Mid-Tour in 1968<\/strong><\/p>\n

Led Zeppelin was in a period of tremendous flux at the time of their first U.K. tour. Jimmy Page was still transitioning from his time in The Yardbirds<\/a>. After the band broke up, Page performed with fellow Yardbird, Chris Dreja, as the New Yardbirds. After Dreja quit the band to focus on photography, Page continued to use the band\u2019s name. Dreja sent Page a cease-and-desist not long after, forcing the guitarist to rethink what he was going to call this new group that featured Robert Plant on vocals, John Paul Jones on bass, and John Bonham on drums.<\/p>\n

The exact origin of how Led Zeppelin got their name varies. The most widely accepted story is that The Who\u2019s John Entwistle and Keith Moon were talking about a potential supergroup featuring Page and Jeff Beck. The bassist and drummer joked that it would have gone down like a lead balloon. Intrigued by the paradoxical phrase, Page held onto the idea. Other anecdotes claim Page used to wear a lead pin of a zeppelin on his shirt. In either case, it stuck. The day after their October 25 show, a more confidently named Led Zeppelin performed at the Bristol Boxing Club.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t go great, but at least they were forging ahead under their new name. According to Mick Farren of The Deviants<\/a>, who opened for the band that night, \u201cThe audience hated us and despised them. Somebody threw a beer glass at the stage and Sid Bishop, our guitarist, unfortunately threw it back and cut somebody\u2019s head open. When Led Zeppelin came on, they got through a number and a half until the fire extinguishers, buckets, bricks, and everything was being thrown at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Jorgen Angel\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Led Zeppelin might have built their reputation on their big, brash, and explosive live sets, but their first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":332304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,35304,975,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-332303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-led-zeppelin","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115436728098992063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}