Touring

[Brett44@xxxxxxxxx (Brett McElheny)]

   By listening to the tape archives one can tell that Zeppelin had more
"off" nights later in their career than they did early on.  It's been
said that the tour schedule and playing night after night could be to
blame, and I tend to disagree.  
  Their most rigorous touring schedules were early in their career, from
their formation until about 1973.  If you listen to the tape archives,
the "off" nights were few and far between, even though the touring
schedule was quite demanding.  However, from the '75 tour onwards,
comparatively speaking, they had it easy.  They were now based in large
cities, had more days off, and were playing multiple dates in the same
city, easier than driving hundreds of miles between gigs on most days.
But, by listening to the tape archives, there were many more "off"
nights than early on(except 6/21-6/27/77, when they were "on" bigtime:).  

   I think we can rule out rigorous tour schedules as a reason for the
"off" nights they experienced later in their career.  It would be fair
to speculate the reason was Jimmy's food poisoning, that he was known to
suffer from.  I'm sure that there were also other problems.  I wonder
how many passes Jimmy signed twice on the '77 tour. 

Discuss,
- --Brett      

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