Achilles' return

On this day in 1976, Led Zeppelin was preparing for an upcoming world tour.

The group hadn't played any concerts all year long thanks to the near-fatal auto accident of singer Robert Plant some months before. Instead of taking the year off, Led Zeppelin completed work on the film The Song Remains the Same and then released it late in the year.

Thanks to the film, worldwide audiences had a taste of some live Led Zeppelin, with better glimpses of the band than ever before. Ready for another round of some live Led Zeppelin, the band was booking a large North American tour for early in the following year.

One of the new songs that would carry over to the next tour was the epic track "Achilles Last Stand," which Robert Plant named after the mythological character whose immortality was disproved when an arrow struck his heel. Plant had figured he'd already once escaped death and transcended the plight of Achilles.

Not made for TV

On this day in 1976, British television's Old Grey Whistle Test aired two segments with Led Zeppelin, notably including a rare interview of the group's manager, Peter Grant.

That show also broadcast a clip from Zep's newly opened film, The Song Remains the Same: Jimmy Page's live violin bow sequence from "Dazed and Confused."

Ironically, the topic Grant discussed in his interview was his opinion that the magic Led Zeppelin produced onstage could not be captured on a 26-inch television screen.

In the interview, which will appear on the re-release of The Song Remains the Same to be issued in less than two weeks, Grant is sporting a T-shirt with the message, "In for a Quick Garden." He is accompanied by Robert Plant, and the two are interviewed on a boat on the River Thames.

The man asking the questions was not the regular Old Grey Whistle Test presenter "Whispering" Bob Harris. At the last minute, the host had contracted a throat infection and had to be replaced. There was no way to reschedule this exclusive interview; the alternative was canceling it altogether, which wasn't preferable.

"'Whispering' Bob [be]came 'Totally Inaudible' Bob," said Mike Appleton, founding producer of Old Grey Whistle Test, in 2001. "The only time that [the interview] could be done was at a specific time and a specific date. So, I had to go and do it." It marked Appleton's second onscreen appearance in the five years of the show's history.

Even though Led Zeppelin was not made for TV, modern technology is today giving the band a new life in living rooms and home theaters. The Song Remains the Same is set to be released on DVD with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound this month (Nov. 19 in United Kingdom and Nov. 20 in United States) and additionally, next month, on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

Soundtrack hits stores

On this day in 1976, the first officially released set of live Led Zeppelin tracks hit stores. The album, the soundtrack to the film The Song Remains the Same, debuted on the Billboard charts at No. 5 in its first week.

Meanwhile, the group's feature film opened simultaneously in nine cities worldwide. The Song Remains the Same started playing regularly in the strong Led Zeppelin markets of London, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles.

The following month, the film opened in many other locations around the world, including in 57 additional U.S. cities. Some theaters were packing midnight showings into 1977 and beyond. The film's regular presence in some countries outlasted even the band itself.

This edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" was published only weeks prior to the re-release of the soundtrack and DVD, both in upgraded form. Part two of this edition, titled "Bring it on back: Thirty-one years later," concentrates on news surrounding those releases and other topics that were current at the time.

High ticket demand in London

On this day in 1976, high demand for tickets to a Led Zeppelin event in London prompted organizers to alter their plan.

The occasion was the British premiere of Led Zeppelin's feature film, The Song Remains the Same, which captured live performances and unique glimpses of the members of the band and its entourage in their natural states.

On Oct. 9, advance tickets to a screening of the film on Oct. 22 went on sale. Tickets sold so well, in fact, that a second theater in England's capital city was acquired to accommodate the number of people wanting to witness the film.

Led Zeppelin thrived on large events, and fans craved more. Unfortunate circumstances had made a Led Zeppelin tour unlikely in 1976. Robert Plant's unsteady footing, the result of a life-threatening car accident the previous August, made him avoid concert stages that year.

Since it had been a year and five months since Led Zeppelin's last shows before any wide audience, fervent fans craving the sight of the onstage routine made it inevitable that not one, as originally planned, but two London theaters would be packed for the band's film debut.

Four days before advance tickets went on sale, British television viewers were treated to the film's rendition of the song "Black Dog" in their homes. The group's rare TV appearance, albeit a prerecorded one, was on the program Old Grey Whistle Test, the BBC's highest rated music television show.

"Led Zeppelin never did television either in the States or in the U.K.," said the program's founding producer, Mike Appleton, in an audio commentary prepared in 2001 for a DVD of the series. "It was a principle that had been put down by Peter Grant, their manager, and I guess it gave them a sort of mystical appeal because people would only see them in concert, never saw them anywhere else."

Part two of this newsletter edition from Oct. 10, 2007, also focused on high ticket demand in London, but a more recent occurrence of it. Part two, "Bringing it up to date," explains how history was repeating itself that year.