But then John Bonham’s death came along, and we were left with the tickets, and felt like we were left hanging on the Gallows Pole. At the time, it didn’t seem so significant...I didn’t know the music well back then. Present day is different.
Flash Forward: Led Zeppelin and any solo act that has come of it, from Plant’s "A Principle of Moments" and "Pictures at 11," and his work with the Honey Drippers, to Page’s largely boring stints with the Firm and David Coverdale (Whitesnake), has always deepened the pain of the loss of those tickets. However, I avidly followed Plant on his solo efforts, which I have embraced deeply. I’ve seen Plant about a half-dozen times since the late 80’s, and it’s always been a pleasure. There was always an aura about Plant that caught me, be it his sexually exciting screaming and moaning during songs, or the way he carries himself, or the way his face and hair seem ageless. Sex does sell.
So when Page and Plant went on tour, I was going to cash in those 1979 tickets. So I saw Page and Plant at the San Diego Sports Arena in April 1995 Then I got good tickets to see Page and Plant again at Irvine Meadows October 3rd, 1995. That’s what this story is all about.
Back to the Future - On concert day I wore my favorite tie dye Rush shirt for the Irvine Page and Plant show. Led Zeppelin is indeed the greatest band that ever performed. I won’t argue with that. However, Rush is my favorite band (Charlene loves Pink Floyd), and I’ve seen Rush about 25 times from England to California. Charlene and I were in Laguna to do lunch, a little window shopping, and then it was time to go to the show. But before we got in the car to leave Laguna, Charlene pulled me into a surf shop to check it out.
I’ve been surfing for 15 years, and after recently meeting Charlene, she wanted to learn so I was teaching her. I guess that’s why we went into this store. Or maybe there was another, deeper reason. Although there were a lot of people on the street, the shop was relatively empty...two clerks, and two other people shopping way in the back. Charlene and I browsed around, checking out clothes and stuff. We were working our way to the rear of the store slowly just checking everything out in a relaxed way. In the middle of the store was this huge saltwater fish tank, and we stopped and admired the large fish. We were checking out some clothes at the back of the store now, and we were about 10 feet away from the other two guys in the store.
I think I was looking at some shirts or something, when something else caught the corner of my left eye. So I looked up to see what it was. It was the two gentlemen who were shopping, and they were closer to us now. At this point, Charlene had no idea of what was going on. I stared at the two guys, and then turned back to my browsing. But then I looked at them again immediately, and my heart began to pound. One guy was dressed in all black, and was just watching the other guy. My eyes went to the other guy, who had his back to me, and from the floor upward, I saw a pair of black boots, a tattered pair of Levi’s, a navy blue, wool captain’s jacket with shoulder patches, and a full head of golden blonde hair.
It was Now or Zen, and it definitely was Zen. There was an absolute sense of denial in my brain at this point. One side said, yes, that’s Robert Plant, and the other side said, naw, it’s just some hippie. But I knew who it was. I immediately looked at Charlene, who hadn’t noticed. I said, "Charlene, is that Robert Plant?" It was a tease, because I knew who it was. I think that Charlene was puzzled. She really didn’t know for a minute (an eternity), but she wanted to believe it was. She got REALLY excited. And then the two gentlemen spoke between themselves quietly, and there was that English accent I knew so well, and both our eyes widened considerably. Here we were in Laguna Beach in a surf shop with Robert Plant...alone. No screaming mobs of fans, no security, no nothing. I reached into my organizer that I was carrying and took out the tickets for the show and handed them to Charlene, and said, "Here, go show him these."
Every woman on the planet wants to have RP’s baby (or so it seems), so it was fitting that Charlene be the one to meet him first. Charlene grabbed them like they were million dollar lottery tickets and walked over to RP, and said, "Would you happen to be going to this show tonight?" She was looking dead eye to eye with Mr. Plant himself. The Hammer of the God of all Gods. Cha-CHING!
I strolled over and introduced myself, and said it was a pleasure to meet him. Thinking quickly, I gave him a pen from the organizer, and asked him if it would be too much trouble to sign our tickets for the show. He did immediately. His stage manager or bodyguard, or whoever it was, then said that we were in for a good time at the show, that the sound and lights were going to be good, and that the band was great. Meanwhile, RP just kept shopping away, looking at clothes and stuff. Charlene talked a little bit more to RP, telling him that she has loved the music of LZ since sixth grade.Today it actually feels like none of this happened, because it was all a blur. The hair, the face, the body, the voice, the presence that I talked about earlier. It was all in that stupid surf shop. Of all places on earth at that particular moment.
We hung around the shop wondering what to do, really. We weren’t leaving. Then we went outside the store front, almost like we were guarding it, and to get some much needed fresh air. RP was still inside. I was thinking at this time that no one in the world would believe us. I saw a pharmacy across the street, looked at Charlene, and said, "Go over there and buy one of those disposable cameras." Charlene is a photographer, so she was across the street before my sentence was done, and back before my heart beat 30 times, which was pretty darn fast. We went back into the store, and asked the bodyguard dude if he would take some pictures of us with RP, and he said yes!!!
So we all went to the counter of the surf shop, and snapped a few memories. RP put his arm around Charlene, and I was shoulder to shoulder with the God of Rock and Roll, pressed up against that funky blue jacket. As I stood there and the flash went off a couple of times, I was trying to figure out if I had seen that jacket in a video or a picture before...was it left over from the LZ daze? Was it from some of RP’s solo shows? Where was it from?The pictures were done, and I looked at RP and asked him if he liked shopping in a surf store, and that the clothes kind of fit his style a little bit. He said that yes, it did fit his style and he liked this type of store. As he was talking to me, Charlene snapped a spontaneous photo of the Man again. We watched him pay for his clothes, which were all California-style flannel surf shirts in all earth tones. Charlene and I just stood there pretty dumbfounded, and RP and friend walked out of the store. And it was over.
We had met Robert Plant in a surf shop in Laguna Beach, of all places. Not backstage, not coming out of a limo, not at a news conference or anything like that. It was up front and personal, just me and Charlene, and no one else. We talked to the girl behind the register, and she at first didn’t know who he was, which surprised the hell out of me. But then she said another employee came over to her and said that it was Robert Plant. The clerk (about 20 years old), said that she thought he was "just some weirdo who came into the shop off the street." What a gas. Oh yeah. I forgot. RP wasn’t wearing anything under that deep blue wool captain’s jacket. Pure skin and chest hair all. Whenever he tried on a shirt, he just took the jacket off and there was RP in the flesh, naked from his blonde locks to his bellybutton. I guess I’m writing this to make the female readers of this note swoon. Let me tell you. Swooning now ain’t nothing compared to what Charlene and I felt that afternoon. Mr. Plant just disappeared. He was gone. Like a ghost. We looked for him around town for a little while longer, but he was nowhere to be found. We wanted to take more pictures of him. Then this white limo goes by down the street a couple of blocks (Charlene didn’t see it), and I felt that presence again, and knew that Robert was off to the show. So we got in the car and headed toward Irvine Meadows.
Beaming like a deer in a pair of headlights on a back country road. In the fog. We were babbling about what had just happened, and we were definitely Dazed and Confused as to why we were so lucky. That’s all it was, really, was luck. Ten more minutes at lunch or the beach or the highway, and this never would have happened. If we had taken any more time to get from work and Charlene’s house to Laguna Beach, well, we never would have met RP. In the car, it should have only taken about 15 or 20 minutes to get to the amphitheater. But we were so stunned, we drove right by our exit, clear back onto Interstate 5, and got lost on the other side of Irvine, and it took an hour to get there! We were totally disoriented. During this time, we wondered to each other where Mr. Page might have been and that increased our excitement even more. We couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to see BOTH of them together. Now THAT would have been something. It may sound kind of greedy, but what the hell!
We arrived at Irvine Meadows, paid for parking, partied in the parking lot with some cool people, and then walked to the gates. We didn’t want our tickets to be torn in half, because Robert had signed them. He signed them right in the middle, which is neat because that indicated that he knew exactly where to sign them, like he probably had millions of times before. So we went to a side gate, and showed some security people the tickets and told them there was no way that we were going to have them torn in half, and they let us in, no problem. These were indeed magic tickets. They were getting us places. Unfortunately, they didn’t get us backstage, because I showed them to the guards just to the side of the stage and lied and said RP had said it was okay for us to come backstage. They didn’t buy it. Oh well. It was worth a shot.
We took our seats. There was something special in the air and In the Evening. Back at the surf shop, Charlene had spontaneously purchased one of those rubber gasket-type black rubber hippie wrist bracelets with beads, and presented it to RP, who immediately put it on. It was pretty cool to see him wearing it at the show as he sang. Charlene had brought her good camera with a long lens on it and we got some more great shots of the show.
After it
was all over and the set was done and I had seen my second
show of Page and Plant, I was a little sad it
was all over. I had so much energy inside of me...but there
was one thing that I was bummed about. I’ve
always wanted to shake Robert’s hand. And I always said to
myself that if I ever met him, I would just
want to shake the man’s hand and say thank you. I think both
Charlene and I said thank you to him in the
surf shop for all the music. But in my excitement, even
standing shoulder to shoulder with him taking
pictures, I forgot to shake his hand. I almost think that
looking into those blue eyes and asking him
questions about his clothes and the shows and stuff, and
hearing him actually reply to me and pay
attention to me, looking at me directly eye to eye, seeing
him fling his blonde hair away from his face,
watching his hands take out money to pay for his purchases...I
think that was almost even better than shaking his hand.
