Posted September 10, by vintagerock in Led Zeppelin. My ticket from the gig. Pretty cool graphics. Local ace promoter Geoff Docherty had been promising us a Zeppelin gig in Sunderland for some time. By the band were massive, and it seemed unbelievable that they would come and play at our local Mecca ballroom. But Geoff was true to his word, and delivered the rock gods to us on a Friday night in November. Tickets had been on sale at Bergs record shop in Sunderland, for all of 75p.
I still have mine, and pretty cool it looks too. Like many others, I rushed home from school, and got over to the Mecca early, to join the queue and get a good spot down the front near our idols. By the time the doors opened there was a massive queue right down the ramp which used to lead into the venue, along the street and over the road to the Wheatsheaf pub, which stood on the corner.
Everyone I knew was going; there were lots of friends in the queue with us. Rear of the ticket. I wonder how many people took up the offer of 25p off the lp? As soon as we got in, we took our places on the dance floor. Those were the days when you would sit cross-legged on the floor watching the band. The Mecca was a medium size ballroom, I would guess it must have held around 1, or so people. The dance floor had wonderful plastic palm trees at either side, and there was a revolving stage, although for bigger bands like Zeppelin a wooden platform was built above that.
I remember that Zeppelin came on stage quite late, and the crowd immediately rose to their feet and surged to the front, forming a terrible crush. There was some concern about taking photographs, I think they searched us at the door on the way in, and were confiscating cameras.
I remember a guy trying to take a photo of Robert Plant just as they came on stage, and the bouncers waded into the crowd to get his camera. Robert intervened, and told the bouncers to leave off the guy to a great cheer from the crowd. The set list was similar to the previous night, but the atmosphere was so much better. I was right down the front close to the band; I could almost touch them and the atmosphere was electric. I managed to stay down the front for about half of the set, but I was too hot, sweaty and crushed and in the end I gave up and made my way to the back of the hall, and spent the latter part of the concert up in the balcony.
