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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.01.13 18:09l 45 Lines 2057 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 34051_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jan 6
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JE7YGF<VE3UIL<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 130106/1557Z 34051@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.53
...
Jan 6, 1975:
Two thousand Led Zeppelin fans trash the Boston Garden
On January 6, 1975, a crowd of 2,000-plus lines up outside Boston
Garden to buy tickets to the rock band Led Zeppelin. Some in the
crowd then broke in to the near-empty arena, and caused thousands
of dollars in damage.
"For years and years, we had people line up overnight to wait for
tickets," recalls Steven Rosenblatt, the ticket-office manager at
Boston Garden on that January night, "but we never had anything
like this." Someone pried open the Garden's locked doors around
midnight, and soon hundreds of beer-drinking, bottle-throwing Led
Zeppelin fans had the run of Boston Garden. "You couldn't have
this kind of crowd running around un-tethered inside the
building," says Rosenblatt, "so we decided to open the ticket
windows." The near-riot was calmed by around 2:30 a.m., when the
Garden staff began selling tickets hours ahead of schedule. By
6:00 a.m., all 9,000 seats were sold out and the crowd had
dispersed, but not before causing upwards of $50,000 to the
Garden and infuriating the Boston's mayor, Kevin H. White.
No one could accuse Mayor White of failing to understand the
power of rock and roll. Back in 1972, he had personally
intervened to free the Rolling Stones from a Warwick, Rhode
Island, jail rather than risk a riot by angry Stones fans if a
scheduled concert in Boston that night were cancelled. White came
down hard on the Led Zeppelin rioters. Not only did he cancel the
concert scheduled for February 4, but he also announced that the
band would not be allowed to perform in Boston for the next five
years. In fact, Led Zeppelin would never perform there again.
Banned in Beantown, the group moved on to the next stop on their
1975 North American tour and bypassed Boston on their next one in
1977. That tour would be Led Zeppelin's last in the United
States, as the group disbanded following the death of drummer
John Bonham on September 25, 1980.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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