Fighting on the street and fire threat in venue when 70s 'biggest band' Led Zeppelin came to Glasgow

Some of it spilled off-stage too – Led Zeppelin’s publicist, BP Fallon, was beaten up outside Green’s Playhouse (which later became the Apollo) for confronting ticket touts.

He sustained cuts and bruises after approaching the men who were selling fraudulent tickets, but he was fine, and told reporters afterwards: ““Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t get a knife in my back.”

The band’s minders later took out revenge on the ticket touts in another brawl outside the venue. Some of the band’s road crew were refused food in the Central Hotel restaurant and moved to alternative accommodation.

On their second night at Green’s, Plant dedicated the song Misty Mountain Hop to staff at the hotel.

Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, and Robert Plant founded Led Zeppelin in August, 1968, and the band went on to sell tens of millions of albums and pack out stadiums across the globe.

They only played seven concerts north of the border, so it was no surprise there was a ticket frenzy when dates were announced for the Glasgow concerts in December 1972.

The Evening Citizen reported that “more than a thousand teenagers, many of whom slept out in the street under hail and sleet showers were still queueing in Sauchiehall Street today for tickets for a pop show.”

At one point the queue stretched 600 yards from the Clydesdale record store on Rose Street to Cambridge Street and Renfrew Street. It was December, 1972, and some fans slept on mattresses, drank tea, hot soup and even lit fires in the street to keep warm on one of the coldest nights of the year.

One fan, Saundra Divers, 18, of Bishopbriggs told the paper: “I came here at 11pm last night. I would have waited a week for these tickets.”

After the second Glasgow show, disaster was narrowly averted inside the venue.

Zeppelin expert Dave Lewis wrote: “Glasgow audiences are renowned for being very receptive, but tonight they are ecstatic.”

But when the band refused to do more than one encore, one irate punter supposedly tried to light a bonfire up in the balcony….

READ MORE: Memories of superstar singer Gilbert O'Sullivan in Glasgow in the 70s

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