NE OF THE BEST: Led Zeppelin was blasting out "Black Dog" in the Long Beach
Arena on a summer night in 1972 and we had somehow managed to gain access to the floor
with a couple of buddies.
We were walking briskly in a manner that would suggest that we knew what we
were doing when we glanced down and saw a bag of weed. Cool. That was a $10
find - twice as much as we'd spent on a ticket ($4.50, although now here we
were in the high-rolling $6.50 section).
We snatched it up and called out to our friends, "Look!" holding it high over
our head like an idiot. In front of a uniformed cop. That kind of idiot.
A second later, the windfall was gone and we were lucky to be sent along by the
policeman to live as a free man to hear, all clear-headed and unloaded, what is
recalled by many as one of the greatest concerts to be held in Long Beach.
Held June 27, 1972 in the Arena, the Led Zeppelin concert wasn't the biggest show on the
road that summer - the monster tour of the season was the Rolling Stones, supporting
their finest work - "Exile on Main Street" - with opening act Steve Wonder.
That tour hit the Arena just 17 days earlier.
Still, both were sellouts, and in the end the Zeppelin show has endured longer in a variety of forms.