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Led Zeppelin Australasian Tour 1972

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Associated album
  
Led Zeppelin IV

End date
  
29 February 1972

No. of shows
  
6

Start date
  
16 February 1972

Legs
  
1

Led Zeppelin's 1972 Australasian Tour was the only concert tour of Australia and New Zealand by the English rock band. The tour commenced on 16 February and concluded on 29 February 1972. (Led Zeppelin's guitarist Jimmy Page had earlier toured Australia with The Yardbirds in January 1967).

The original plan for this tour was for the group to stop off en route at Singapore for a concert on 14 February, but the local authorities refused their entry due to local laws banning males from wearing long hair.

Led Zeppelin received generally good press coverage for this tour and black-and-white footage of some of their concert at Sydney on 27 February, along with a press party, were filmed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and shown to a national audience. Some of this footage was later made available on the Led Zeppelin DVD, released in 2003.

Part way through this tour, Jimmy Page shaved off his trademark beard, a look he adopted nearly two years before while recording Led Zeppelin III. He had the beard at Led Zeppelin's concert in Melbourne 20 February, but is clean shaven at the band's press party two days later. Page would remain clean shaven for the rest of the band's career.

All of the concerts on this tour except for one (at Brisbane on 29 February) were performed at open-air venues. The Melbourne performance at Kooyong Stadium on 20 February was cut short due to inclement weather.

All concerts from this tour are available on unofficial CDs except for the Perth concert and show the band in fine form.

Tour set list

The fairly typical set list for the tour was:

  1. "Immigrant Song" (Page, Plant)
  2. "Heartbreaker" (Bonham, Page, Plant)
  3. "Out on the Tiles" (intro) (Page, Plant, Bonham) / "Black Dog" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  4. "Since I've Been Loving You" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  5. "Celebration Day" (Page, Plant, Jones) (on 25, 27 and 29 June only)
  6. "Stairway to Heaven" (Page, Plant)
  7. "Going to California" (Page, Plant)
  8. "That's the Way" (Page, Plant)
  9. "Tangerine" (Page)
  10. "Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp" (Page, Plant, Jones)
  11. "Dazed and Confused" (Page)
  12. "What Is and What Should Never Be" (Page, Plant)
  13. "Rock and Roll" (Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham)
  14. "Moby Dick" (Bonham)
  15. "Whole Lotta Love" (Bonham, Dixon, Jones, Page, Plant)

Encores:

  • "Communication Breakdown" (Bonham, Jones, Page)
  • "Organ Solo"/"Thank You" (Page, Plant)
  • There were some set list substitutions, variations, and order switches during the tour.

    References

    Led Zeppelin Australasian Tour 1972 Wikipedia