In that the concert actually took place back in 1969!
FH Reader Robert Campbell fills us in on what it was like seeing Led Zeppelin at The Kinetic Playground, fifty years ago!
Led Zeppelin, Kinetic Playground,
July 18th and 19th, 1969
I'm a little late on this review ... 50 years to be exact ... but looking back, this one was a game changer.
July 18th and 19th, 1969
I'm a little late on this review ... 50 years to be exact ... but looking back, this one was a game changer.
It was a Friday night and six of us piled into a '66 Dodge and headed for The Kinetic Playground in Chicago.
We had never been there before and I have no idea how we found it, but we did. It appeared to be in an older part of town. I am going to stab at some details here the best that I can as it was a long time ago.
It appeared to be a former movie theater, as the floor sloped toward the stage. There were these round rooms about eight feet in diameter with open ends facing the stage. These little rooms had mattresses on the floor.
I had previously attended three pretty high end concerts ...
Jimi Hendrix, 2/25/68, Civic Opera House
Cream, 3/21/68, Beloit College, Wisconsin
The Who, 8/3/68, Majestic Hills, Lake Geneva, WI, Stage seats, eight feet from John Entwhistle
... But I was not expecting this.
Once you got inside, I really don’t remember a whole lot of staff and I don’t remember seeing anything that represented security, etc. You pretty much could do whatever you wanted to, and we did.
The opening acts were Savoy Brown and Jethro Tull. We were familiar with Savoy Brown, but not Jethro Tull. The poster and internet correspondence I found about ten years ago also indicated that Litter played that night as well, but we did not see them. If they did, they played before we got there.
Savoy Brown and Tull both put on pretty damn good shows. Each set lasted about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Around 10:30, Zeppelin came on and they immediately broke into a two song, back to back medley ... Communication Breakdown and Good Times Bad Times, a couple of songs you would expect them to end with, but they burned these two right out of the box, which is a good indication of where this set was going.
They then slid into Dazed and Confused. This show was beyond incredible. The balance of the set lasted about 1.5 hours and consisted mostly of the songs from their first album, which had just been released in January of '69, as well as a couple of songs from the Yardbirds days, most notably, Train Kept a Rollin'. They did not play any of the Yardbirds, per se hits.
At midnight, the show slammed to a halt, but it was not over. All three bands came back and played an additional 45+ minute set. Zeppelin played last and wound it up at 3:00 am the next day.
Absolutely amazed by all of this, we piled back into the Dodge and somehow found our way back to Rockford, IL, where we arrived at 6:00 am after the sun had risen. It’s much easier to go to sleep before the sun comes up.
Although I have been to plenty of shows since, I have never attended a show of this magnitude again. The three bonus sets were the icing on the cake.
Exactly three months later, we returned to the Kinetic for another Zeppelin show. It was on a Sunday night and the opening act was Santana, another act we were unfamiliar with. Due to the fact that it was Sunday, there were no bonus sets, but it was the only time in my life that I did not make it to my first class the next day.
The reason I bring up this show is that looking back, this show slammed the door on the 60s and opened the door to a new era. I did not realize this at the time, nor was I saddened about this. What does sadden me is that about half of my friends completely discarded the 60s and embraced the new era, while the other half still maintain strong ties to the 60s, the new era as I reference it (I refuse to use the 70s as it is still 69), as well as the 50s. There are other factors, but I’m going to leave it at that.
I have no memory of what happened the next day after the first Zeppelin show. At the time, my summer job was working for The US Geological Survey. For most of the summer we worked out of our area, but we were recently transferred to Sandwich,IL. Our crew consisted of a classic “Redneck” and two college longhairs from Madison and Rockford. On Sunday afternoon, I drove my '64 Triumph Spitfire back to the rickety, turn of the century, wooden hotel in downtown Sandwich where we were staying. This was kind of like an old west hotel and was located right on the main railroad tracks, like 60 feet away.
All night long, every hour on the hour ... cling, cling, cling ... clang, clang, clang ... roar, roar, roar, a huge train would go by and almost shake you out of bed. We were on the second floor and there was a gang bathroom at the end of the hall, tub only. If you wanted to watch TV there was a dimly lit dayroom with a couple of chairs and maybe a 12” x 12” black and white TV. And that’s where I was when the first man set foot on the moon. Did I by chance mention that we were also the only longhairs in town at the time?
-- Robert Campbell
