Led Zeppelin Scandinavian Tour 1968

Led Zeppelin's 1968 tour of Scandinavia was a concert tour of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway by the English rock band. The tour commenced on 7 September and concluded on 24 September 1968. It was Led Zeppelin's first concert tour. However, the band was billed under the name "The Yardbirds" at the time.[1]

Scandinavia 1968
Tour by Led Zeppelin
Poster for Led Zeppelin's concert at Gladsaxe (billed as "The Yardbirds"), used to help promote its 1968 Scandinavian tour
Start date7 September 1968
End date24 September 1968
Legs1
No. of shows14 (15 scheduled)
Led Zeppelin concert chronology

Overview

Led Zeppelin's debut tour was an outstanding contractual commitment left over from The Yardbirds. The band's first concert at Teen Club, a school gymnasium in Gladsaxe, Denmark, was performed exactly two months to the day after The Yardbirds' final concert.[2] The band's manager, Peter Grant, later said of this first concert: "Standing by the side of the stage, it was obvious that there was special chemistry."[3]

Guitarist Jimmy Page recalled that "the tour went fantastically for us, we left them stomping the floors after every show."[4] According to singer Robert Plant:

We made no money on the first tour. Nothing at all. Jimmy [Page] put in every penny that he'd gotten from the Yardbirds and that wasn't much. Until Peter Grant took them over, they didn't make the money they should have made. So we made the album and took off on a tour with a road crew of one.[5]

Plant also recalled the following:

In Scandinavia we were pretty green; it was very early days and we were tiptoeing with each other. We didn't have half the recklessness that became for me the whole joy of Led Zeppelin. It was a tentative start.[6]

For these early shows, the band was billed as the "Yardbirds" or "New Yardbirds", despite the fact that Jimmy Page was now the only surviving link with the previous band. Page later said:

We realised we were working under false pretences, the thing had gone quickly beyond where The Yardbirds had left off. We all agreed there was no point in retaining the New Yardbirds tag so when we got back from Scandinavia we decided to change the name [of the band]. It was a fresh beginning for us all.[7]

Tour dates
List of concerts, showing date, city, country, venue and opening acts
Date City Country Venue Opening Act(s)
7 September 1968 Gladsaxe Denmark Gladsaxe Teen Club Fourways, Bodies
Brøndby Brøndby Pop-Club The Day of Phønix, The Eyes
8 September 1968 Lolland Reventlowparken Beatnicks
Roskilde Fjordvilla LadyBirds (es), Beauty Fools
12 September 1968 Stockholm Sweden Gröna Lund Hep Stars, Marmalade
13 September 1968 Inside Bernt Staf, Bertil Bertilsson
14 September 1968 Knivsta Ängby Park Kenneth Staags with Hayati Kafé
15 September 1968 Gothenburg Liseberg
17 September 1968 Malmö Folkets Park
18 September 1968 Gothenburg Unknown
20 September 1968 Stockholm Stockholm Concert Hall
21 September 1968
22 September 1968 Bergen Norway Gimle School
23 September 1968 Oslo Manglerud Club
24 September 1968

Setlist

The setlists of the earliest shows are sketchy, as no recordings of these shows exist.

The likely setlist for this tour consisted of:

  1. "Train Kept A-Rollin'"
  2. "I Can't Quit You Baby"
  3. "Dazed and Confused"
  4. "How Many More Times"
  5. "White Summer"
  6. "For Your Love"
  7. "You Shook Me"
  8. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"
  9. "As Long As I Have You"
  10. "Communication Breakdown"

References
  1. "Led Zeppelin: Pictures show first concert, in 1968". BBC News. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  2. Mick Wall (2008), When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography Of Led Zeppelin, London: Orion, p. 47.
  3. Ian Fortnam, "Dazed & confused", Classic Rock Magazine: Classic Rock Presents Led Zeppelin, 2008, p. 41.
  4. Dave Schulps, Interview with Jimmy Page, Trouser Press, October 1977.
  5. Interview with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, January 1975
  6. Mat Snow, “Apocalypse Then”, Q magazine, December 1990, p. 77.
  7. Lewis, Dave and Pallett, Simon (1997) Led Zeppelin: The Concert File, London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-5307-4, p. 12.

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