ANOTHER ASTERICK-AWFUL DANCE! . . . The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin – University of Kent 1967 and 1971

I’ve eaten a good many meals in Rutherford Dining Hall, the idea of Led Zeppelin playing there, as rumour had it, seemed as fanciful as them playing the even smaller venue Bridge Place Country Club (now a restaurant) in a village near to Canterbury. I’ve been there once and I can’t figure out where they would have played – all the rooms seem entirely inadequate for a rock band. . .

The Who had played Eliot Dining Hall the year before, which is the same size as Rutherford, holds approximately 600 bodies, but then, as it turned out, the event took place in the Sports Hall and not where I bought chips and beans.

The gig was part of Zeppelin’s ‘Back to the Clubs’ tour and their sixth UK jaunt, the idea was to reconnect with their audience. . . . which Robert Plant, at least for this reviewer, singularly failed to do . . .

Back when they played in Bridge in December 1968, Zeppelin were billed locally as ‘The Yardbirds’, possibly the last time they were promoted as such in Britain.

Before the three original Yardbirds up and quit on him in the Spring of 1968, Jimmy Page had played alongside Keith Relf, Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja for the University’s Summer Ball, 1967 . . . Their performance was slammed in the student paper InCant.

No Ball!

NOT AGAIN! YES, AGAIN I’M AFRAID – ANOTHER ASTERICK-AWFUL DANCE!

The really significant word in the above statement/exclamation is ‘Dance’. Friday the 2nd of June was to be the University of Kent at Canterbury Summer Ball. What we actually got was a rather upper-second-rate hop.

What price non-culmination? About £200 in the red! Much of this debt probably due to the £300-odd paid for 50-minutes’ ‘worth’ of un-danceable Yardbirds.

To cap it all, the buffet served day-old lemon mousse . . . . the horror

In defence of The Yardbirds, there were complaints about nearly every band subsequently booked for freshers week or the end of year ball. You couldn’t dance to any of them and they were always too loud and money was inevitably lost . . . Of all the bands who played the University in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s – Manfred Mann, Kinks, The Move, Procol Harum, Ten Years After, The Who – only Fairport Convention, twice, turned a profit. University gigs were subsidised and always ran at a loss, but lemon mousse, at least, was never again on the menu . . .

Traces They Left . . . Yardbirds in Australia

Thousands of Sydney teenagers, most of them girls packed into Sydney Stadium last night for the ‘Big Show’ . . . Keith Relf (above) lead singer of the English group, clutching the microphone and gleaming in a shirt of pink silk, seems to reflect the hysterical excitement of the evening.

Sydney Morning Herald (January 24, 1967)

Morning Herald (January 8, 1967)

Morning Herald (January 15, 1967)

An old picture . . . Morning Herald (January 22, 1967)

Morning Herald (January 24, 1967)

‘The Yardbirds, four bedraggled but friendly Englishmen’

Melbourne’s The Age (January 25, 1967)

‘The Yardbirds were disappointing compared to their discs’, wrote Mike Walsh.

Sydney Morning Herald (January 29, 1967)

Festival Hall, Melbourne (January 26-27)

‘Yardbirds . . . a bizarre English group . . . Lead guitarist Jimmy Page bears a mention if only for his dress –a black frock coat, heavily jewelled tie, synthetic shirt and purple bellbottom trousers. On his lapel he wore medals – I don’t know why; they certainly aren’t for his singing’.

First night review, The Age (January 27, 1967)

State Express’s Terry Clark claims to have played sessions with The Yardbirds . . . Another chancer?

Sydney Morning Herald (December 3, 1967)

Yardbirds at Dayton's Super Youthquake, August 5, 1966

The Yardbirds first appearance on their debut US tour with Jimmy Page was for two afternoon shows, Friday August 5, 1966, at Dayton’s department store in their eighth floor auditorium.

Outside of showcase gigs like those at the Hullabaloo in Hollywood, back at the start of 1966 when Paul Samwell-Smith was still in the band, The Yardbirds’ US shows that year were mostly as part of some bigger event, like this smash fashion bash.

Dayton’s department store was massive, a size that must have seemed beyond belief to young Englishmen in 1966

Jimmy Page outside the store, snap taken by fan John Morris [HERE]

All a blur: image of the gig that is floating around on Facebook with Beck present and correct.

The Super Youthquake was a month long back-to-school bash, The Yardbirds no more than a blip in the scheme of things – at best they were part of a promotional gambit, another piece of English culture, like a faux Carnaby Street window display

‘Girl watchers’ . . . . those attending the afternoon shows. All very ’66 Mod and not a word on the ’Birds – the ostensible reason they had gathered to look and be looked at

Image is from the press conference given in the store, it is not a publicity shot like those used in advertising the event that still featured Paul Samwell-Smith.

The Yardbirds were in Minneapolis but a day before moving on to Davenport, Iowa and then Chicago for a meeting with Cynthia Plaster Caster who would take a mould of Beck’s leg . . . After the Dayton’s gig you could buy the demonstrator Fender amp they’d used (perfect working order) or pick up a ‘Yardbird’ type fuzztone (bring ad for special discount). . . . The traces they left . . .