led zeppelin | Blackfire Research

Throwback Thursday: Led Zeppelin Make Their Live Debut

On this day in 1968, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham made their live debut as Led Zeppelin at a Teen Club in Gladsaxe, Denmark. However, at the time, they were billed as the New Yardbirds because Jimmy Page’s old group, Yardbirds, who were supposed to embark on a Scandinavian tour together, broke up. Wanting to fulfill his commitments, Page assembled a new version of the band to play at the already-booked gigs. Upon completing the tour, the newly-formed band began recording their first album and changed their name to Led Zeppelin (thanks to a cease and desist letter by a former Yardbirds member.) The rest is history!

Throwback Thursday: Led Zeppelin Release their Debut Album

48 years ago, Led Zeppelin’s debut album, Led Zeppelin, was released in the United States by Atlantic Records. The album, which brought us “Good Times Bad Times,” peaked at No. 10 on Billboard. Critical reception to the album was lukewarm, but was a commercial success due to the band’s hard-rock sound which was gradually being adopted by the American and British counterculture. In 2004, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is currently ranked at #29 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”