Live Reviews

The 40 greatest concerts in Boston history: 12

Led Zeppelin | Boston Tea Party | January 23-26, 1969

By PHOENIX STAFF | October 25, 2006

concerts_12

Jimmy Page: After the Yardbirds . . . : Comes Led Zeppelin. By Ben Blummenberg

A poster advertising Zeppelin's three-night stay at the Boston Tea Party

There’s a reason they call them British invasions. And Led Zeppelin’s three-night stand at the Boston Tea Party in 1969 was part of what seemed like an endless parade of great, classic bands who were just beginning to peak, many of them British. It was a year in which in the course of one month at one club, you could catch three nights of the Who, three nights of the Jeff Beck Group, three nights of Poco, three nights of the Bonzo Dog Band, two nights of Joe Cocker, and two nights of the Velvet Underground headlining over the Allman Brothers Band. It’s why when people refer to the long defunct Tea Party on Lansdowne Street they inevitably use the word “legendary.”

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Related: What Should Never Be, Cinematic blunders, Flashbacks, May 12, 2006, More

Topics: Live Reviews , Radiohead, The Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, More

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The 40 greatest concerts in Boston history: 12

A freshman at Emerson, I was, in my dorm at least, one of the early discoverers of this new experiment in STEREO radio rock, WBCN. Through the winter of '68/69, they were playing the grooves off of LZ's debut album and I was mezmerized. When the Tea Party dates were announced, I went through the dorm trying to round up a cadre of enthusiastic attendees, with decidedly mixed results. We numbered four or five when finally opening night arrived (Jan. 23) and I remember being stunned that attendance approximated no more than a well attended high school dance. Took a few moments to get used to the idea that this was no longer a church, though it certainly looked the part, minus the pews. We alternately stood and sat cross-legged on the floor in the face of a painfully loud but brilliant set, all the while inhaling some of Jamaica's finer second hand smoke. Memorable night, indeed, but who knew we were making concert history...or that these guys would go on to own the 70s?

By Nat Humphreys on 05/27/2007 at 9:11:13

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