They were booked and billed as The Yardbirds, performed as The New Yardbirds and they became LED ZEPPELIN.
Led Zeppelin playing at someone’s school gym! The thought just blows the mind. Here is the story of that evening September 7, 1968.
Before The Yardbirds split up a Scandinavian tour had been arranged. The new band and their manager, Peter Grant, used this contract to use Scandinavia as testing ground.
The Yardbirds was a popular band in Denmark, so many people looked forward to see them this evening. When the audience came to the Teen Club they saw a hand made sign saying ”Tonight: The New Yardbirds”. In these days, when you saw a band turning up with the word "New" in its name, you knew that something wasn’t right, that it wasn't the same group anymore. Many were disappointed before the band hit the stage. When Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones started playing the disappointment vanished. Little did the crowd know that they were witnesses to the world premiere of what was to become the greatest rock'n'roll band of the 70’s. The price for seeing The New Yardbirds, and two other groups, this evening was 7 Danish kroner (about one US dollar). The club paid the agency, Bendix Music, 7,000 Danish kroner for booking the band.
The band had only rehearsed a few times in London before embarking on the Scandinavian tour. The first gig was at Gladsaxe Teen Club. While the club volunteers in the afternoon was transforming the gym hall into a nice club (setting up some tables and chairs, hanging up coloured lamps and marqees) the band knocked on the back door. They asked if they could rehearse this afternoon. What a treat for the volunteers to have a long and exclusive concert.
After the show the band, with the help of some of the volunteers, carried the gear out to the van and rushed to the next gig 10 miles away – at Brondby Pop Klub. The following day The New Yardbirds drove about 20 miles west of Copenhagen – to Roskilde. And from there another 100 miles south to Reventlow-Parken. The next destination was Sweden.
The four guys came back to Gladsaxe Teen Club on March 15, 1969. This time billed as Led Zeppelin. That name was not yet known to the public, so to sell tickets the club put Yardbirds in brackets under Led Zeppelin.
A few days later they made a famous live tv-recording in the studios of Danish Broadcast Corporation (by coinsidence also located in Gladsaxe at the time).
