During idle moments of chat it always blows the mind of a youngster if I drop the Z bomb.
Yep I’ve seen Led Zep live. As many of you have of course.
25 May 1975 at Earls Court. Pretty cool you would think for the younguns eh.
But my mate can go one better. He was playing a lunch time gig at the Windsor Arts centre to a crowd of about nine when an elderly grey haired stoner wandered in and passed ten minutes watching the band from the shadows. It was Jimmy Page. So my mate can say that Led Zep saw him. A bit cooler than my story.
I’ve sold him a fruit cake (at a Cake stall I was minding for Mrs D and friend and Henley Festival).
Or was it Rula Lenska who bought the cake, and Jimmy Page was milling sound the edge of the stall?
As Zep-based anecdotes go, it is a bit rubbish
As fruit cake anecdotes go, however…
Rock cake follies.
Not a lemon drizzle?
Squeezed?
And she’s buying a fruit cake , unleavened.
Well played sir
My older sister was a teacher in rural South Australia, and she told me one time that young male students would always be rambunctious, difficult little so-and-so’s…until they learned that Mrs Macarthur had seen Led Zeppelin when they toured here back in 1972 – thereafter she would be treated with something like hushed awe.
That is cool. I stood next to him at the bar in the Albert Hall once waiting for a Jeff Beck gig to start.
Barman looks over his head, serves someone else. ‘How many more times?’ he sighs.
Arf
“Clearly a communication breakdown”
I was rather impressed when our art teacher at school informed us that he’d once seen Jimi Hendrix at some club in London. Possibly the Bag o’ Nails – I can’t remember.
I was (am) very proud that my mum saw Jimi supporting the Walker Bros. She saw Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac too.
Off topic, but my art teacher introduced me to Lightnin’ Hopkins. Not in person, he lent me an elpee.
My brother was in an egg and spoon race against Jimmy Page.
He reports as follows:
At the Fair. Carters steam Fair held on Holyport Green. Used to come in a white suit ! Liked to be low-key 🙄Plus he was at hospital when our daughter was born. His missus giving birth same time. Saw him every day for a week. Used to say howdy and ask how baby was going.
Now that is cool.
I once did a DJ set at a kids birthday party, as Mr Tumble’s support act. None more Tap.
I once showed Robert Plant’s touring band around the dodgy nightclubs of Deira in Dubai. Not the rock overlord himself, he had retired to heave a telly or two out of his hotel room window, post gig.
Off topic, but I once saw Robbie Fowler buying a toothbrush in Boots.
Hadn’t he changed out of his kit yet?
I was watching Traffic at Imperial College when halfway through the concert Johnny Winter sat down in the empty seat next to me. “Nice shirt” he said to me.
Steve Winwood looked over at one point and said “Is that Johnny Winter?” J shook his head and pointing at me replied “No, this is Johnny Winter”. Cue laughter. I think it was my lack of bum length white hair that gave the game away . Needless to say it was the real Johnny who went up on stage, grabbed a spare guitar and played very, very fast
Great story. I love JW. Not subtle but I don’t go to him for subtlty.
Mrs BJB has seen both the Jackson 5 in their pomp – when Michael was still a teenager – and Bob Marley and The Wailers. A guy we know literally did a jaw-drop when she told him about the latter gig.
In July 1980 I went with some friends to see Bob Marley and The Wailers at Deeside Leisure Centre. Probably not one of their most famous gigs, but nonetheless a soundboard recording became available on a bit-torrent some years back, which I downloaded.
I copied it to one of the friends, who now lives in the USA.
His children were amazed 1) that he had seen BMW and 2) he was listening to a recording of that very gig.
I was at that one. I remember having cold wet feet!
I see Deeside Leisure Centre includes an ice rink. Surely the sun drenched reggae titans didnt play in an ice rink??
Saw The Who there Feb 1981, I didn’t bring my ice skates …
They just put pretty thin insulated mats over the ice for shows. I once had tickets to a Rush gig there which had to be relocated as a second night at the Birmingham NEC, because someone had left a pinball machine plugged in and managed to burn down an ice rink.
Deep Purple should have written a song about that.
Steam from the Water?
They did, but it was quite warm, being July.
Unlike when we saw Ian Dury & The Blockheads when it was bloody freezing.
I was at that one. An unsympathetic Ian told us all we should have put our jumpers on.
My wife stood on Bob Marley’s foot. Don’t know whether his jaw dropped in response.
Hope is wasn’t “ that” big toe !
Rest assured that I have held her personally responsible on a number of occasions.
Walking through the park (Finsbury I think) when I saw quite a crowd watching a bunch of blokes playing football. I heard someone say “That’s Bob Marley”.
“Yeah, right” I replied and walked on
A very similar thing happened to me once. I was in the supermarket with a mate and he said “that’s that Mavis Riley off of Coronation Street”. Turned out it wasn’t her at all, but a woman who worked there.
When I lived in Earls Court in the late sixties, the place seemed to be full of out-of-work jobbing actors. I’d constantly be thinking “I know her” before realising it was only Mavis Riley off of Coronation Street. .
Everyone on the Suffolk coast knows that Richard Curtis and Emma Freud live in Walberswick. But the downstairs flat where we stay in Southwold is next door to that actress off of Midsomer Murders.
You know, the skinny old lady with the long grey hair. Yes, her. She was having a kitchen extension built this year, so we awoke most mornings to the sound of a JCB digging footings.
And most of the rest of the band too I expect.
There was indeed a lot of natty dreadlocks..
Thirty years ago i got together with my wife to be we visited some friends one of whom I’d first met at Cropredy. After introductions and general talk I said my WTB was originally from Muswell Hill and of course Fairport were mentioned. My WTB stunned us by saying that after they the van crash she’d gone with her brother to see them in hospital.
I got interviewed once by Keith Potger of Georgie Girl hitmakers The Seekers. I was in the finance sector and he was paid to do it. It was about derivatives. I’m not sure he knew what they were but he was quite friendly.
A friend of mine (now tragically deceased) played a gig with his band. Afterwards Jeff Buckley came up to him and said he had enjoyed the show
Steve Gibbons once accidentally jostled me at the bar and a few drops of my pint went over me. He was very apologetic.
I have also caused a moment of awe when I mentioned seeing led Zeppelin, and can do this for Bob Marley, too – a rather weak gig was Bob’s, but he did die the next year, so i reckon unwell – not that the audience seemed to be especially critical. Seeing SAHB, and Bowie in his Berlin phase for £2.50 in 1978 are the ones that now mean the most to me. I have most trad rock acts to draw upon for bragging rights from the 70s, other than the Sex Pistols, TBH. As if anyone cares.
What really caused a sharp intake of breath in a group of students was when I talked about “tripping off my nut” at Glastonbury in 1983, their having thought I was some square middle-aged science nerd. This I am, but I was also the fun-seeker in 1983. I think Glastonbury 1979 was better. That had students think I had been at Agincourt.
I once stood next to Paul Heaton as we waited for a cubicle (not the same one) in the public toilets outside Prospect Centre in Hull. I refrained from asking “Are you ready…”
I has a pee next to Karl Wallinger from the World Party in Autumn 1986 at Leeds University and then attended their gig that night along with 5 others, 3 of whom were with me, and we shared their rider after the gig and got a signed ticket.
Karl must have been really impressed with (not so) Little Wheaty!
Mentioned before here I think that while buying a drink at an Albert Hall bar at a Who gig I found myself stood next to Richard E Grant, (moments after nearly bumping into Jerry Hall) what brilliant line from Withnail and I could I have recited that would be so appropriate? So many, instead I came up with “You were really great in that film”, he murmured his thanks
Two anecdotes.
On a school trip to France, we stopped off en route to the ferry at a services & old Percy was in the foyer having a coffee with his driver. I’m normally ambivalent if I see celebs minding their own business but I was a gibbering fan boy this time. Head of Languages didn’t have a clue who he was. I went up to him & thanked him for all the pleasure his music had given me over the years. To which he replied with a chuckle, “You wouldn’t have said that last night, we were fucking shite!”
Then last week, got into a lift with Mrs BFG & in walks Ron Mael! Wife was clueless & wisely resisted the urge to say “This lift ain’t big enough for the 3 of us.”
A pal and his brother ran an antiquarian book shop in Brighton that often had celebrity browsers. Just for music, Fripp, Wakeman, Patti Smith, Gilmour were all in over the years. He said that rock’ n roll jokes were never appreciated by the customer, who just wanted to live their private life and look at the books.
The parasocial nature of being a music fan means we know a lot about the people who make the music that lives in our heads, whereas we are a stranger to it’s creator. Our familiarity makes us think we could be friends as they note our exquisite taste in music, and we laugh at their “not for public consumption” anecdotes. I don’t get the impression that this happens.
I don’t have any anecdotes, but my cousin, his wife and her brother all went to school in Henley (my aunt lives not too far from Henley) and the brother was in the same class as Dhani.
Apparently there was an after school gathering at Friar Park and the parent went to pick up the brother, was having a cup of tea in the kitchen when in walks George….
“Hi, I’m George……”
I suppose there is a slight chance that there was someone who didn’t know who he was.
Nice. I heard he could occasionally be found visiting some of the local pubs too
A friend of mine lived in Henley briefly, was at some sort of school fete,local MP Boris Johnson was a special guest, pissed out of his mind and snogging a woman who was with him. Totally inappropriate
But totally Boris.
A friend of mine spent a day with McCartney through work. Same thing, walks in, shakes hands and says, “Hi, I’m Paul.”
I am glad he has stopped introducing himself as “Sir Macca Thumbs Aloft”
Around 1983 our maths teacher was a chap called Mr Goddard.
He had slightly longer hair than your average teacher and he was often called a hippie (not to his face obviously)
For some reason during a lesson the subject of gigs came up.
Turns out he’d seen Pink Floyd doing The Wall at Earls Court.
To a bunch of 14 year olds out in the sticks he seemed positively exotic.
The same year he took the leading role in our production of “The Dracula Spectacular” and I played his hunchbacked sidekick Genghis.
No 60 foot inflatables or surrogate Draculas were involved.
I get a certain amount of kudos from my nephews, for having been at the Earls Court Wall show…
A late friend of mine once reported “My biggest celebrity spotting fail ever was not recognising the guy sitting next to me at a Talking Heads, Pretenders show in Melbourne in 1984. It was driving me crazy ‘cos I knew his voice and kept trying to get a proper look at him. Just before Talking Heads finished he and his mate got up and left. When I got back home I turned on the local music show and there was the guy being interviewed, he’d had quite a short hair cut and I didn’t recognise Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant without all his curls.”