by Richard Cole
Nevertheless, I told one of our roadies that to me this seemed like the beginning of the end for the band. The soul that had driven Zeppelin since 1968 just seemed to have weakened, and drugs played too much of a role in everyone’s life. It wouldn’t be fair to say that the music suffered; the sellout crowds never seemed disappointed, at least from my backstage vantage point. But I just felt that the passion and the camaraderie weren’t as strong as they had once been. By the end of the tour, the band had performed more than 550 concerts over its life span of nearly nine years. Maybe some burnout was inevitable.
The Zeppelin entourage had grown to ridiculous numbers, which was one of our problems during that spring and summer tour. Each band member traveled with his own personal assistant: Dennis Sheehan, who had been a roadie for Maggie Bell, joined us as Robert’s assistant; Dave Northover, a pharmacist and a rugby player, helped John Paul; Rex King, who had one of the meanest right hooks in England, came on board to keep an eye on Bonzo; and Rick Hobbs, Jimmy’s chauffeur and butler in London, worked with him. I even had an assistant, Mitchell Fox, who came out of our New York office, and Peter had help from Johnny Bindon. As a result, there were multiple divisions within the organization, with all of us relying less on each other for support and companionship. Mitchell spent most of his time trying to control the other assistants so I could have contact with the band members themselves. Cliques were formed, and a very tight organization became fragmented.
I still tried to make life as tolerable as possible for Led Zeppelin. For instance, I had reserved Bonzo a two-bedroom suite at the Ambassador East, just as he wanted it, with one of the bedrooms furnished with only a pool table, no furniture. But after hours of billiards, the novelty of the pool table had worn thin.
“We’re checking out later today,” I told him. “Calm down and we’ll be out of here before you know it.”
Probably more than anyone in the band, Bonham still had difficulty relaxing in the aftermath of a concert. He’d become hyper and fidgety and sometimes feel the need to bang away at something long after he had left his drum kit. This particular afternoon, after I had returned to my own room down the hall, Bonham decided to unwind by methodically demolishing his hotel suite.
Chairs crashed against walls. Couches soared out of shattered windows. So did lamps and end tables. A television set followed close behind, exploding on an airconditioning unit more than a dozen stories below.
Hearing the commotion, I sprinted down the hall, joined by a couple of our own security men. The door to Bonham’s suite was ajar, and as we stormed inside he was hovering near the pool table, plotting his next move.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” he roared. “This table is as heavy as an elephant. Give me a hand!”
What the hell! There wasn’t much in the suite to save by this point. The four of us each gripped a corner of the pool table, lifted it off the ground, tilted it to one side, and then ceremoniously dropped it on the floor, propelling splinters in half a dozen directions. The impact shook the entire room, perhaps the entire city. Before the reverberations had ebbed, there may have been a tidal wave in Lake Michigan.
“Time for an encore?” Bonzo asked, nodding his head in answer to his own question. We repeated the destructive maneuver again and again—raising the table and then letting it explode on the floor—until it resembled firewood.
Of course, in other tours, Bonzo had rarely shown any respect for hotel property. As in the past, maybe it was boredom that was driving him this time, too. But I just felt that it was more, that everything was just coming apart at the seams.
A few minutes after the pool table had crashed into the floor for the last time, the hotel manager showed up at Bonzo’s door. He gasped as he surveyed the carnage before him. He hurriedly strode over to the phone and summoned his secretary, who arrived a couple of minutes later with pen in hand. He asked her to note all the damage in the suite, and as she did, Bonzo stood just to her right, playfully helping her make her inventory (“Don’t forget the damage to the floor!” he exclaimed). The total bill for the outburst was $5,100.
At one point, when the manager could no longer contain his exasperation, he directed our attention to a mirror that had somehow survived Bonzo’s onslaught. With sarcasm oozing from his lips, he exclaimed, “Oh, my God, you missed a mirror!”
Bonham chuckled. “Don’t be so sure of that!” he growled. He strutted across the room, lifted the mirror off the wall, and hurled it to the floor. It burst into dozens of pieces.
Despite my own concerns, every concert continued to play to standing-room-only crowds, and the scalpers struck pay dirt, turning six-dollar tickets into seventy-five-dollar sales. In Pontiac, Michigan, 76,229 fans crammed into every breathing space of the Silverdome and the three-hour concert grossed a phenomenal $900,000 for a single night of music. We also sold out four concerts at Chicago Stadium, four at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, six at Madison Square Garden, and six at the Los Angeles Forum. From April through July, Zeppelin showed that it was still the biggest drawing card in rock music.
Peter hadn’t lost any of his commitment to the fans. By this point, he could have become hardened to the whole process, developing a “let them eat cake” attitude. After all, he knew that each show would be a sellout, no matter how much extra effort and showmanship he put into it. But even amid the personal problems he had experienced in recent years, he never lost sight of the fact that it was the fans who had made this all possible. As we planned this 1977 tour, he was adamant that every fan would get his money’s worth. In large venues, he insisted that an oversized video screen be installed, so that the people sitting in the nosebleed sections would feel just as much a part of the action as those in the front row.
We did without the Starship in ’77, but we certainly didn’t rough it. About ten days before the tour began, I got a call informing me that the jet had been grounded at Long Beach airport when one of the engines nearly came off in flight. With the band already often tied in knots over flying under any circumstances, I figured that giving them a report on the Starship’s engine problems would send them running for the nearest Amtrak station. So without going into any great detail as to why the change was made, I went ahead and arranged to use Caesars Chariot, a 707 owned by Caesars Palace. It was just as luxurious as the Starship, although it didn’t have a Thomas organ.
No one seemed to care about the Thomas, however. Most of us were much more interested in engulfing ourselves in booze and drugs within minutes after the plane was off the ground. For that tour, we consumed Singha beer by the case and drugs as though they were cotton candy.
Robert was taking painkillers as well. His leg, still not fully rebounded from the 1975 accident, was keeping him from functioning at 100 percent. Of course, he was on his feet during most of every concert, strutting like a peacock as the band stampeded over the crowd with “Rock and Roll,” “Whole Lotta Love,” and “Stairway to Heaven.” There were moments, however, when his body seemed to be tied in knots, incapable of emoting the kind of body English that had become a Plant trademark. Sometimes, I could see him grimacing in pain. Pagey tried to pick up the slack, drawing the audience’s attention to his own swaggering, straining, and strumming and seeming quite content to lay claim to most of the stage.
Some nights, Robert’s leg and ankle literally screamed for mercy from the wear and tear of the grueling concert tour. He appeared relieved as the acoustic set of each three-hour show would begin, when he could actually sit down at center stage next to Bonzo, Robert, and Jimmy and extend his leg in front of him for songs like “Black Country Woman” and “Going to California.”
“Sometimes I envy you, Bonzo,” Robert said one night, “just sitting on your drummer’s stool for the entire concert. Let me know if you ever want to change places.”
At one point during the tour, Robert told me that the audiences were sometimes the only thing between him and just throwing in the towel. Their cheering motivated him to grit his
teeth and push through the pain as though it didn’t exist. The fans were his support, his inspiration.
While Robert never bailed out during the tour, the weather intervened at an outdoor concert in Tampa, forcing a cancellation—a decision that didn’t sit well with many fans. Maureen Plant and Mo Jones had traveled to the States with their children to visit Disney World and spend a little time with the band. We had flown into Orlando to pick them up, then headed for Tampa, where 70,000 tickets had been sold for the performance at Tampa Stadium. As Caesars Chariot approached Tampa, it was raining steadily. Peter was gazing out the window near his seat with a concerned expression. I knew his policy was never to let Led Zeppelin go near a stage in damp weather, and to have an alternate rain date available.
In 1972, tragedy had struck Stone the Crows, one of Peter’s acts. Maggie Bell was the powerful lead singer of the band, and as the press began comparing her to Janis Joplin, Stone the Crows attracted a growing following. But during one of their performances in Wales, guitarist Les Harvey was electrocuted. Other members of the group, including keyboardist Ronnie Leahy and bass player Steve Thompson, tried desperately to revive Harvey, but he died onstage. Stone the Crows never recovered emotionally from the tragedy. I don’t think Peter did, either. In 1973, the band broke up.
An investigation showed that Harvey had been electrocuted when a short occurred in his equipment. After that, Peter decided the risks were too high to let anyone ever perform in circumstances, including rain, that might increase the risks of electrocution. Peter became very protective of his musicians. He spent a lot of money on special transformers capable of absorbing shocks before they could ever cause any harm to Led Zeppelin. Even so, the no-rain policy became an inflexible rule for all of his acts.
Ten minutes before our plane landed in the Tampa rain, I was looking at the tickets for that night’s show. “Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “Peter, look at this. It says that the concert will go on, rain or shine! Who the hell put that on the tickets?”
Peter was outraged. He had never permitted a concert with a rain-or-shine policy, and he had no intention of changing his game plan. Terry Bassett of Concerts West was on the plane with us, and Peter let him know how unhappy he was. “Bassett,” he yelled, “what the hell has happened here?”
For the moment, Terry was at a loss for words. Just then, the plane landed with such a jolt that it took everyone’s mind off the matter at hand. Peter’s fury was put on hold, at least temporarily.
The rain stopped an hour before the show was scheduled to begin, and the skies seemed to be clearing. Peter decided to let the show move ahead as planned. The band opened with “The Song Remains the Same,” bringing down the house. But after two more songs and in the middle of “In My Time of Dying,” the sky exploded with thunder. Within two minutes, rain began falling in torrents. Peter didn’t hesitate. He immediately ordered the band off the stage and the equipment covered with tarps. “If we can, we’ll wait it out,” he said. The fans didn’t budge. A few had brought umbrellas, but most of them were getting drenched. Nevertheless, no one’s spirits seemed to be dampened.
We waited backstage patiently for the rain to stop, but it showed no signs of doing so. Finally, Peter grumbled, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Before the crowd was notified of the cancellation, police escorts guided our limos out of the stadium. Then an announcement was made, asking the crowd to disperse peacefully—an announcement that brought a chorus of boos that lasted more than ten minutes. Some of the fans didn’t seem to believe it. Others were angry.
Despite the continuing rain, much of the crowd remained at the stadium. They chanted, “We want Zeppelin! We want Zeppelin!” They threw bottles at the stage, where our roadies were trying to dismantle the equipment before the entire stadium became a monsoon.
Then the scene got ugly. Fights broke out in the audience, fans fighting with fans. Forty policemen in riot gear, most of whom had been stationed outside the stadium, dove into the crowd, flailing their billy clubs. The concert had turned into a full-fledged riot. Fists swung and blood flowed. Sirens blared from police cars and ambulances. Sixty fans ended up in the hospital. So did a dozen cops.
When we reached the airport and were boarding Caesars Chariot, one of our security men got word about the mayhem at Tampa Stadium. It brought back memories of the horrifying riot in Milan back in 1971. All of us were crushed, but Robert seemed to take it the hardest. “It’s so unbelievable,” he said. “People come to hear music and they get their heads bloodied.”
Maybe there was something in the air in Florida. When tickets had gone on sale for the concert, hundreds of overzealous fans had forced their way into the Orange Bowl—one of the sites where tickets were being sold—and proceeded to tear out seats, rip apart offices, and steal food from concession stands. A SWAT team from the Miami police department was called and finally brought the disturbance under control by hurling tear gas at the fans. The Miami Herald ran the following headline about the disturbance: “Black Sunday for Real at the Orange Bowl: Last Time a Blimp, Now the Zeppelin.”
Unfortunately, the Tampa incidents weren’t the only violence associated with the ’77 tour. After the band’s concert at the Summit in Houston, rowdy fans went on a rampage, causing $500,000 worth of damage. Forty of them were arrested for disorderly conduct and drug possession.
52
THE SÉANCE
As the 1977 tour continued, I became increasingly uneasy about how the band was functioning. Onstage, the music continued to be so strong that, at least while they were performing, it eased some of my anxieties about the band’s longevity. But offstage, we spent less and less time together as the tour progressed, as though we were staying in different hotels, not just down the hall from one another. When we did socialize, streaks of hostility or maliciousness toward other members of the group sometimes surfaced.
We flew into Atlanta for a concert at the Omni. My girlfriend at the time, Rebecca, was traveling with us. So was another friend, Linda, who had been a waitress at the Rainbow in Los Angeles. On Caesars Chariot, Rebecca was wearing a beautiful Indian-style chamois dress. Someone apparently looked at her and decided to harass me a little. He must have talked one of our security guards into ripping the dress off my girlfriend, probably as a way to drive me nuts.
I was sharing a snort of coke with Jimmy when the security man approached us, grabbed Rebecca’s dress at the collar, and jerked his hand downward. The dress tore down the front and, within seconds, she was standing in her bra and panties, screaming and trying to cover herself with her arms.
Pagey burst into laughter. Peter roared with such delight that his voice echoed off the cabin walls. I didn’t see anything funny about it.
“You fucking assholes!” I snapped. I leaned back, raised my left leg, and aimed a karate kick at one of the airplane windows, smashing it with my left foot and crumbling two of its three panes. As the window disintegrated, a platter of coke went soaring into the air, creating a snowstorm throughout the plane. Jimmy, who probably hated flying more than any of us, just about fainted. Linda dropped to the floor, figuring that the broken window would cause changes in air pressure and, in seconds, the plane would tumble out of control.
“I’ll teach you not to fuck with me!” I screamed, pointing a finger at Jimmy. I had assumed, apparently by mistake, that Pagey was responsible for disrobing Rebecca. “Does this have something to do with your black magic shit? Is this what you’re into now—tormenting women?”
Tempers had eased a bit by the time we checked into the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, although I was still pissed off. A short while later, the girls, Jonesy, and I were in Bonzo’s suite, sitting around a table, making small talk. I noticed the table had a lever on its underside; by maneuvering a knee and pushing the lever to the side, we could elevate the table.
“Let’s stage our own séance,” Bonzo suggested. “Jimmy isn’t the only one who can get into this supernatural bullshit!”
Jimmy w
as deeper into Aleister Crowley than ever. He had even opened up a bookstore in London that dealt exclusively with the occult. In general, those interests, however odd they seemed, weren’t that big a deal for the rest of us since Pagey still never tried to brainwash us with his own beliefs. But because we occasionally heard stories that Led Zeppelin was a “jinxed” band, they weren’t something we could completely ignore, either.
I decided to get back at Jimmy. “Let’s have a little fun with Pagey,” I said. “In fact, I’d like to scare the shit out of him!”
Jimmy’s suite adjoined Bonham’s, and the door between them was slightly ajar. I dimmed the lights, and, within earshot of Jimmy, we began chanting as loudly as possible.
“Ooomm…ooomm…ooomm.”
We had linked hands and closed our eyes. Fighting back laughter, we readied ourselves to communicate with the spirits.
“Ooomm…ooomm…ooomm.”
Bonzo whispered, “This stuff really is crap!”
Through squinted eyes, I finally saw Jimmy walking toward us, with Peter a step behind. As they moved closer, Linda gently pushed the lever with her knee. The table began to rise.
Jimmy and Peter were startled. Jimmy flinched and took a step backward. Both had expressions that seemed to say, “It’s a fucking miracle!”
The table dipped and then rose two more times. Peter must have finally gotten suspicious. He walked over and flipped on the light switch. With the room fully illuminated, he got down on his hands and knees and spotted the lever. Neither he nor Jimmy seemed to find it very funny.
As the tour proceeded, I wasn’t getting along any better with Robert. Of course, he was having problems of his own just making it from one concert to the next without being overwhelmed by his leg pain. He spent a lot of time by himself, whiling away many of his off-hours in his suite, resting his leg, watching TV, and sampling whatever alcohol and drugs happened to be within reach. But during the concerts themselves, he continued to unearth a reserve of energy, clearly thriving on being the center of attention.