On this day 24 September

 England, Japan, US, Mexico, Thailand: A whole lotta love of music for the whole world

1971 24 September On This Day Led Zeppelin, Tokyo at Budokan Hall (day 2)

• 1966 Yardbirds - Leeds, West Yorkshire, England at Leeds Odeon Theatre
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Tokyo, Japan at   Budokan Hall (day 2 of 2)
• 1988 Jimmy Page - New Orleans, Louisiana at New Orleans Municipal Auditorium
• 1995 Page & Plant - Mexico City, Mexico at City El Palacio de Los Deportes Arena (day 2 of 2)
• 1998 Page & Plant - Phoenix, Arizona at American West Arena

1971

A whole lotta experimentation and improvisation during this gig. Tangerine was performed live for the first time. After the show the band visited a geisha house.

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin Tokyo Budokan Hall

1988

Nothing on YouTube from JP's New Orleans show. Looks like I'll have to upload a file myself one of these days. If someone already has it ready to share, let me know!

2011:
This was the first year of the Jesters Care for Kids Gala night, and the first that Jimmy Page attended.

2011 Jimmy Page with Jesters Gala chairman, Woody Underwood

2011 Jimmy Page with Jesters at Care for Kids Gala Night

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Tokyo Japan at Budokan Hall - day 2 of 2, 24 September 1971)  
♪  Jimmy Page’s 8mm footage of Japan 
♪  Page & Plant (Mexico City, Mexico at City El Palacio de Los Deportes Arena (day 2 of 2), 24 September 1995)

♪  Page & Plant (Phoenix AZ at American West Arena, 24 September 1998)

On this day 23 September

 JIMMY PAGE - the new kid on the block

1966 23 September On This DayYardbirds at Royal Albert Hall

• 1966 Yardbirds - City of Westminster, London, England at Royal Albert Hall
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Tokyo, Japan at Budokan Hall (day 1 of 2)
• 1988 Jimmy Page/Outrider - Dallas, Texas at Starplex Amphitheatre
• 1995 Page & Plant - Mexico City, Mexico at City El Palacio de Los Deportes Arena (day 1 of 2)
• 1998 Page & Plant - Las Vegas, Nevada at MGM Grand Garden Arena 

1966 Yardbirds at Royal Albert Hall

1966 Yardbirds promo photo

1971:
The Japanese idolized Led Zeppelin and seemed to be a refreshing change from the loud and disruptive US audiences the band had been experiencing. Robert Plant was probably pretty sick and tired of having to ask the crowds to quiet down, to stop throwing firecrackers and other objects, and to back away from the stage so people wouldn't get crushed. Not that Japanese audiences didn't want a piece of the boys - the band had to stop during Communication Breakdown because fans were crawling onto the stage.

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Tokyo, Japan at Budokan Hall (day 1 of 2)

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Tokyo, Japan at Budokan Hall (day 1 of 2)

1998 Page & Plant - Las Vegas, Nevada at MGM Grand Garden Arena

2012 Jimmy Page Artwork for Anthony Nolan 2013 charity auction

2012:
Anthony Nolan is a charity dedicated to saving the lives of people with blood cancer and blood disorders. The organization maintains a registry to match individuals willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people with blood cancer and blood disorders who need transplants. In February 2013 Anthony Nolan held the "Bone Idol" auction of celebrities' drawings of bones on eBay to raise funds. Jimmy Page's drawing is in black ink on a blank postcard. It was autographed and dated on the front and came with a note from Jimmy Page's accountant. It sold for £205.00 ($250.90 today in US dollars).

♪

♪ Led Zeppelin (Tokyo Japan at Budokan Hall - day 1 of 2, 23 September 1971) 
♪  8mm footage of Led Zeppelin, Tokyo 23 September 1971) 

♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Dallas TX at Starplex Ampitheatre,, 23 September 1988) 

♪  Page & Plant (Mexico City at City El Palacio de Los Deportes Arena - day 1 of 2, 23 September 1995)
♪  Page & Plant (Las Vegas NV at MGM Grand Garden Arena, 23 September 1998) 

On this day 17 September

 "This is my invitation, I want to change your destination..."

~ Cadillac, from The Firm's Mean Business album

1984 17 September On This Day 

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Malmo, Sweden at Folkets Park 
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Honolulu, HI at Honolulu Civic Auditorium
• 1984 Jimmy Page with The Firm – finished recording Long Black Cadillac at The Sol
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Mesa, AZ at Mesa Amphitheatre
• 2013 Jimmy Page attends Queens of the Stone Age concert

1971

Hard to imagine this show isn't available to hear today. Somebody's got to be hoarding a tape!

1971 Led Zeppelin - Honolulu, HI at Honolulu Civic Auditorium (day 2)

1971

1975

Melody Maker Awards

1984
Given the experience of all the members of Jimmy Page's band, The Firm, it's no wonder they were able to record songs in one take. Recorded and mixed at Jimmy Page's Sol Studios in Berkshire, England, Cadillac appeared on The Firm's second album released in 1986, Mean Business.  There, it is just plain Cadillac, not to be confused with various versions of The Long Black Cadillac performed by other artists, light-years different from The Firm's song. Jimmy Page's Cadillac is dark and dirty. Magick oozes from his guitar.

As far as that version of "Cadillac" goes, we were lucky to get it. Because it was a live number and you can't do that in a room with a couple of takes because it has to be alive...
~ Jimmy Page, Guitar World July 1986, page 87

The Firm and Mean Business never did take off, though they were decently high on the charts. People still were expecting the Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, when in fact there was - and is - much more to Jimmy Page than that. 

Sad so many are so blind to that lovely musical Magick.

1988

2013 Jimmy Page backstage at Queens of the Stone Age (Ross Halfin photo)

2013 Jimmy Page with Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen backstage at
Queens of the Stone Age concert (Ross Halfin photo)

2013 Jimmy Page and Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age

♪

♪  Cadillac (Jimmy Page The Firm, Mean Business 1986) 
♪  Cadillac (Jimmy Page The Firm, Birmingham England 1985) 
♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Mesa AZ at Mesa Amphitheatre, 17 September 1988) 

On this day 14 September

 Friends

1988 14 September On This Day Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Austin, TX at Frank Erwin Center
♪  How Come (Ronnie Lane) Soundcloud

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Stockholm (Knivsta), Sweden at Angby Park
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Berkeley, CA at Berkeley Community Center
• 1974 Jimmy Page & John Bonham with David Crosby, Neil Young, Graham Nash & Stephen Stills - St. James Place, London at Quaglino's Restaurant 
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Austin, TX at Frank Erwin Center

1971

Originally the reviewers whined about how loud the band was, but the Berkeley Community Center show is immortalized in the bootleg, Going to California and is now considered a classic.

1974

After the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Joni Mitchell show at Wembley in London, all four members of Led Zeppelin joined in at the party at Quaglino's Restaurant in St. James Place.  The in-house band was determined to be no good, so Young, Nash and Stills took the stage.  They were joined by Jimmy Page and John Bonham for a jam that included Vampire Blues and On The Beach. Supposedly Robert Plant also joined in on guitar and vocals. If there are recordings of the jam, I haven't come across them. If you have, please share!

1974 Neil Young, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills & Jimmy Page
jam at Quaglino's in London after CSNY concert at Wembley.   (Photo Joseph Stevens)

1988:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ronnie Lane was the driving force in the British bands the Small Faces and later, the Faces with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. In 1973 he quit the Faces and formed his own band, Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance. They toured England in a caravan for a few years, playing in small towns like bards of old, complete with a circus tent, jugglers and clowns.

Lane also established a mobile studio after he left the Faces. Kashmir was recorded there. It was around this time that Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, rendering him incapable of playing his instruments or singing. Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood and other musicians put together and performed the ARMS Tour in the UK and US in 1983 to raise awareness of MS and to promote a cure.  Lane died in 1997 from the disease.

1988 Jimmy Page with Bucks Burnett in Texas

1988 Jimmy Page with photographer Mark Bowman in Texas

2013 Jimmy Page with Bucks Burnett in London

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Berkeley CA at Berkeley Community Theater, 14 September 1971) 
♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Austin TX at Frank Erwin Center, 14 September 1988) 

On this day 11 September

Catching up with past events

♪ Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin, BBC 1971) Soundcloud

• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Rochester, NY at Rochester Community War Memorial
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Houston, TX at The Summit
• 1998 Page & Plant - Concord, CA at Concord Pavilion

1969:

Jimmy Page may well have discussed the Led Zeppelin BBC sessions with Shaun Keaveny of BBC Radio in 2010, but the original Keaveny interview about the Sessions took place on 10 December 2009, and the show was broadcast in two episodes on Christmas Day and Boxing Day (25 and 26 December 2009), and has been rebroadcast several times since then. 

The BBC interview was billed as "the inside story of Led Zeppelin's BBC sessions, told exclusively by Jimmy Page....Jimmy Page chooses his personal highlights from the music, and shares his memories of an extraordinary time in Led Zeppelin's history."

While the British Broadcasting Company might be the first and largest broadcasting company in the world, as a publicly funded entity its existence is never certain. In early 2010 BBC management recommended that Music 6 be shut down. The BBC trust overruled the recommendation later that year, partly due to an aggressive public and media campaign as well as intervention from David Bowie.

The documents presented on Jimmy Page's website On This Day were from the BBC’s written archive and were published for the show, which also aired BBC Session music that hadn't been commercially released. One of the songs was a Whole Lotta Love medley (1971).

"For those who were hearing it for the first time, there was a certain guitarist who was really wincing at the out of tune part, because the string had dropped and it was out of tune," he said.

"I was gyrating on the chair here wishing I could tune it up.

"Anyway it got tuned and it got back in, but I could hear then it was putting my playing off. It’s interesting." 

As to the cheque made out to Jimmy Page for six pounds:  It bounced.

"It just so happened that quite a number of years ago I was going through some old papers and things in a tea chest, and I found this cheque that said, 'Ordered not to pay'," he explained. "It’s from the Zeppelin era, so one of these sessions. 

"I’ve actually got it on the wall at home and I should have looked at the date before I came here. It was probably for that out of tune guitar on that medley, and that’s fair do's."

~ Jimmy Page, Shaun Keaveny BBC Radio interview 2009

BBC reissued the check and presented it to Jimmy Page during the interview.

1969 Led Zeppelin Top Gear audition report

1969 cheque from BBC

Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions chronology

1971

The band got carried away during Black Dog and almost had to stop performing to try to get back on track. However, Jimmy Page saved the day (or at least the song) by improvising his way into his solo, after which the band picked the song properly. One wonders what the talk was like backstage afterwards.

1988

Houston

2013:

Jimmy Page has been supporting Thailand's Care for Kids Gala Party Night for some time now. The fundraiser is organized by the Jester's Motorcycle Club of Pattaya.

In 2013 Jimmy Page donated a guitar to the cause that he signed and played a riff from Kashmir on. It was auctioned at the 21 September 2013 Gala amidst fierce bidding. Jimmy Page was there that year and a couple others, and on those days I'll post more photos.

2013 Jimmy Page with the guitar he autographed and donated to the Jesters for their auction in Thailand

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Rochester at Rochester Community War Memorial, 11 September 1971) 

♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Houston TX at The Summit, 11 September 1988)

♪  Page & Plant (Concord CA at Concord Pavilion, 11 September 1998) 

 

On this day 10 September

 The show must go on.

1966 10 September On This Day The Yardirds - Baltimore, MD at Baltimore Civic Center

• 1966 The Yardirds - Baltimore, MD at Baltimore Civic Center
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Syracuse, NY at Onondaga War Memorial

1966:

You can never predict what the consequences of an action might be. Whether Jeff Beck was recovering from surgery or was, as Jimmy Page hints at On This Day, playing hooky, the result was that it would not be long before our Mr. Page was sole lead guitarist for The Yardbirds. And of course, the next step after that was a big one.

1966 Yardbirds Baltimore

1971

"...Led Zeppelin came to Syracuse Friday night, and their performance before an entranced mass of young people, proved that they will be with us for some time to come. Their music is haunting and different, and they were a big hit with those in attendance."
   - Andrew Reschke (Sept. 1971, Syracuse Journal)

1988:

A bit of trivia about the beginning of the Outrider Tour, though not so trivial at the time: Jimmy Page had abdominal surgery during the week of 21 August 1988. The opening night of the tour was to have been at the Sun Dome in Tampa on 31 August, only ten days post-surgery, so that gig was cancelled and the Miami Arena date was changed from 2 September to the 8th.  He flew from London to Atlanta on 31 August and, after three days of rehearsal at The Omni, the tour opened.

A far cry from Jeff Beck's tonsillitis - know what I mean?

2009 Fall Guitar Aficionado Magazine (Ross Halfin Photo)

2015 September special Led Zeppelin collectors edition published by Bob Guccione

♪

♪  No Excess Baggage (The Yardbirds feat. Jimmy Page guitar 1967) You Tube
♪  Sick Again (Led Zeppelin, MSG 1975) YouTube
♪  One Hit To The Body (Rolling Stones feat. solo by Jimmy Page 1986) YouTube
♪  For Your Life (Page/Plant/Jones/Jason Bonham, O2 2007) YouTube

On this day 09 September

Outrider!

• 1966 The Yardbirds - Alexandria, VA at Alexandria Roller Rink
• 1970 Led Zeppelin - Boston, MA at Boston Garden
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Hampton, VA at Hampton Roads Coliseum
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Tampa, FL at USF Sun Dome 

1970
Unusually, the Boston Garden gig didn't sell out. It's hard to imagine, but there it is. 

1970 Led Zeppelin - Boston, MA at Boston Garden

1970 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Boston, MA at Boston Garden

1971

Plant sang a bit from "Hi-Heel Sneakers" (written by Tommy Tucker and covered by a whole bunch of people including Elvis): "Put on your red dress, baby, Lord, we goin' out tonight" as an intro to "What Is and What Should Never Be".

1971 Led Zeppelin - Hampton, VA at Hampton Roads Coliseum (photo M Mitchell)

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Hampton, VA at Hampton Roads Coliseum (photo M Mitchell)

1988:
A solo tour is one in which one musician is the focus, rather than the band. Outrider was Jimmy Page's first solo venture, one that many of us felt was long overdue. Although he used a variety of musicians on his solo album, it was John Miles, Durban Laverde and Jason Bonham who supported Jimmy Page on the brief (September - November) 1988 Outrider Tour.

British vocalist John Miles had a hit in the U.K. with Music in 1976.  Miles sang on just two of Outrider's tracks, Wasting My Time and Wanna Make Love. A vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist, Miles has toured
with Tina Turner both as a musician and a tour director, with Joe Cocker and others over the years. He has released ten studio albums as well as live and compilation albums and singles.

Venezuelan Durban Laverde is a bass guitarist, keyboardist, session musician, and producer. He has performed with a variety of artists over the years. David Gilmour used Laverde to session for Pink Floyd in early 1987, during which time he met Phil Carlo who was working for Gilmour and for Jimmy Page at that time. Carlo gets the credit for introducing Laverde to Jimmy Page.

Jimmy Page had known Jason Bonham since before Jason got his first drum kit at 4 years old. The son of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, Jason was drummer for the band, Virginia Wolf, that toured with The Firm in 1985. Jason drummed for Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones at the 1988 Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert in New York City and the 2007 Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert at The O2 Arena in London in 2007. Jason has released or appeared on approximately twenty albums, and currently tours as Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience.

1988 Outrider promo photo - Durban Laverde, Jason Bonham, Jimmy Page, John Miles

Jimmy Page has has performed with a lot of good musicians over the years. Outrider is awesome - but it's the guitar work that is awesome, not the vocals, not the drumming, not the bass. For those of us who revere the guitar work of Jimmy Page, he's always been the only one on the stage.

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Boston at Boston Gardens, 09 September 1970) 
♪  Led Zeppelin (Hampton VA at Hampton Roads Coliseum, 09 September 1971) 
♪  Jimmy Page - Outrider Tour (Tampa FL at USF Sun Dome, 09 September 1988) 


 

On this day 08 September

 Check out the guy covering his eyes.  He's peeping between his fingers.

Led Zeppelin on this day in 1968

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Lolland-Falstar, Denmark at Reventlow-Parken
• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Roskilde, Denmark at Fjordvilla Club
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Miami, FL at James L. Knight Center
• 1998 Page & Plant - Portland, OR at Rose Garden, Theatre of The Clouds

1966

Andy Warhol got to go to all the great parties back in the day.

Keith Relf, Andy Warhol, Jimmy Page 1966 (Michael Ochs photo)

1968
The "Yard Birds" performed at a harvest festival first, later at the Fjordvilla club where they were supported by The Lady Birds, four topless go-go dancers. Although the band got onstage early (7:00 PM) the audience was already drunk and rowdy. 

1988

Jimmy Page's performance of  “In My Time of Dying” featured some awesome slide guitar work. The outrider tour consisted of Jimmy Page, John Miles on vocals and keyboard, Durban Laverde on bass, and Jason Bonham on drums. The show ended with an instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven" with the audience supplying the vocals.

♪

♪ Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Miami FL at James L Knight Center, 08 September 1988) 
♫ Jimmy Page Outrider interview by Mick Wall YouTube

♪ Page & Plant (Portland OR at Rose Garden Theatre of the Clouds, 08 September 1998)