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Led Zeppelin United Kingdom Tour Winter 1971

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United Kingdom Winter 1971
Tour by Led Zeppelin
Poster for Led Zeppelin's concert at the Wembley Empire Pool, used to help promote its Winter 1971 U.K. tour
Location
  • England
  • Scotland
Associated albumLed Zeppelin IV
Start date11 November 1971
End date21 December 1971
No. of shows16
Led Zeppelin concert chronology

Winter 1971 United Kingdom Tour was a concert tour of the United Kingdom by Led Zeppelin. The tour ran from 11 November to 21 December 1971, and "confirmed their supremacy in the UK rock marketplace".[1] Taking place immediately after the release of the band's fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV, all tickets sold out despite going on sale less than a week before the commencement of the tour. Second shows at Wembley and at Manchester were added after fans queued for up to eighteen hours in order to secure a ticket.[1]

This tour is particularly notable for the two concerts performed by the band at the Wembley Empire Pool, Wembley Park, dubbed the "Electric Magic" shows.[2][3][4] These five hour shows included bizarre vaudeville circus acts with plate spinners, trapeze artists and performing pigs which were dressed in policeman's uniforms.[5] The concerts also incorporated supporting acts such as Stone the Crows, which was a rare event for Led Zeppelin at this point in their career.[1] A colour poster was sold to fans at the concerts for 30p, which is now a rare and highly sought-after collectible. An altered version of the poster was created for a two coloured silk-screen T-shirt print in 2010 for an official Led Zeppelin T-shirt.[6]

This was the first concert tour on which the band visually projected the "four symbols" which adorned (and is a variant title for) their fourth album onto their stage equipment. Jimmy Page's "Zoso" symbol was put onto one of his Marshall amplifiers, John Bonham's three interlinked circles adorned the outer face of his bass drum, John Paul Jones had his symbol stenciled onto material which was draped across his Fender Rhodes keyboard and Robert Plant's feather symbol was painted onto a side speaker PA cabinet. Plant's feather symbol was the only one not used in subsequent Led Zeppelin concert tours, and Jones' symbol was removed after the Japanese Tour in 1972.[1]

Tour set list

[edit]

All track written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, except where noted.

The fairly typical set list for the tour was:

  1. "Immigrant Song"
  2. "Heartbreaker" (Bonham, Page, Plant)
  3. "Out on the Tiles" (intro) (Page, Plant, Bonham) / "Black Dog" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  4. "Since I've Been Loving You" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  5. "Rock and Roll" (Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham)
  6. "Stairway to Heaven"
  7. "Going to California"
  8. "That's the Way"
  9. "Tangerine" (Page)
  10. "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  11. "Dazed and Confused" (Page)
  12. "What Is and What Should Never Be"
  13. "Celebration Day" (Jones, Page, Plant)
  14. "Moby Dick" (Bonham) (on November 13, 20, 21, and 23 only)
  15. "Whole Lotta Love" (Bonham, Dixon, Jones, Page, Plant)

Encores (variations of the following list):

There were some set list substitutions, variations, and order switches during the tour.

Tour dates

[edit]
Date City Country Venue
11 November 1971 Newcastle upon Tyne England Newcastle City Hall
12 November 1971 Sunderland Locarno Ballroom
13 November 1971 Dundee Scotland Caird Hall
16 November 1971 Ipswich England St. Mathew's Baths
17 November 1971 Birmingham Kinetic Circus
18 November 1971 Sheffield Sheffield University
20 November 1971 London Empire Pool
'Electric Magic' show
21 November 1971
23 November 1971 Preston Preston Public Hall
24 November 1971 Manchester Free Trade Hall
25 November 1971 Leicester Leicester University
29 November 1971 Liverpool Liverpool Stadium
30 November 1971 Manchester Kings Hall, Belle Vue
2 December 1971 Bournemouth Royal Ballroom
9 December 1971 Coventry Lacarno Ballroom
21 December 1971 Salisbury City Hall

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4, p. 72.
  2. ^ Led Zeppelin official website: summary of first concert
  3. ^ Led Zeppelin official website: summary of second concert
  4. ^ Wembley Arena 1934-2004 The First Seventy Years. Wembley Arena. 2004. pp. 20–1.
  5. ^ MTV.ca | News - Afternoon Fix: Celebrity Birthdays, the 'Enchanted' Movie Minute, the latest news, and more
  6. ^ "Mr Cloud's T-shirt Emporium: Led Zeppelin t-shirt showing the altered version of the Electric Magic poster". Archived from the original on 2016-09-22. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
[edit]

Sources

[edit]
  • Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4.
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