Headley Grange is the birthplace of many Led Zeppelin albums including Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti.  According to faroutmagazine.co.uk, Headley was a former workhouse built in 1795 and turned into a recording studio.

Headley Grange was a workhouse used by the poor and over the next 30 years, garnered a bad reputation. Riots and general neglect persisted until it was changed into a recording studio in the 60s. The atmosphere of a bad reputation hangs over the location. Some of which may have led to Jimmy Page's strong interest in the occult.

Fleetwood Mac, and Genesis used it as a recording studio in the 60s. And Led Zeppelin called it home from 1970-1975.

The escape to Headley Grange allowed the band to concentrate on the music, far removed from distractions. Jimmy Page had this to say about the location:

“The reason we went there in the first place was to have a live-in situation where you’re writing and really living the music,” he said. “We’d never really had that experience before as a group, apart from when Robert Plant and I had gone to Bron-Yr-Aur. But that was just me and Robert going down there and hanging out in the bosom of Wales and enjoying it. This was different. It was all of us really concentrating in a concentrated environment.”

Led Zeppelin recorded three albums and then returned in 1975 to Headley to work on Physical Graffiti. Many doubted that Led Zeppelin could create a successful double LP (Why would anyone doubt Led Zeppelin?). They returned and started recording in a mobile studio.

Headley Grange allowed for some extremely optimal musical opportunities. For instance, Bonham's drums were a unique audio experience as his drum set was fixed in the main hall and the sound reverberated from the walls. Page had the engineers mic the walls to capture the sound.

Ideas spawned from everywhere within this foreboding and remote location. Jimmy wrote "Stairway to Heaven" while sitting in front of the roaring fire in the sitting room. This fire being the only source of heat in this frigid environment. Page had this to say about returning to Headley:

“We had just gone through a real lengthy leg of touring. And we had a bit of a break, time for people to go on holiday and that with their families, and then the recording date was put in the schedule, and what it was, was actually to return back to Headley Grange where we had done the fourth album and have a mobile recording track – a multi-track truck.”

Physical Graffiti was a culmination of ideas floating around that came together at Headley Grange. And Page knew this about the album:

And that was it, before going in there, we sort of knew instinctively, in the pit of our stomachs that it was going to be great, that wonderful things were going to happen,” Page added. 

Of course, the icing on the cake of what is Physical Graffiti is the creation of "Kashmir". Jimmy said that the ideas were a riff that kept going and going and round and round. What is called a "rond" musically.

One week from today is the anniversary of the release date of Physical Graffiti, February 24th, 1975. A day Led Zeppelin put all doubts to shame as the album still blows away minds today.

Did you notice too, we're having a "Get Your Led Out" weekend where you can win a copy of this album? Check it out.

Check out Led's record-breaking show at the Silverdome:

Led Zeppelin at the Silverdome shattered records with their April 30th, 1977 performance. Massive ticket sales prompted the Silverdome to be concerned with how the concert would run.  Especially in light of events just days before in Cincinnati.  A fan of Led Zeppelin had been pushed from the third level of the Cincinnati Coliseum and died when he was hit by traffic.

With crazy high record sales, the Silverdome prepared for the show by formulating a plan. A plan which included letting the fans in early and reserving over 14,000 seats. Even with the band being late, reports say the crowd was mostly chill. When there are 70,000+ people involved though, you know there were still some moments of insanity from Led Zeppelin at the Silverdome.

Tickets sales broke records at the time topping $847,000 (with inflation, more than 4 million dollars) for one show. Tickets sold for $10.50 before the sellout. Some fans arrived earlier on Friday afternoon. While scalpers were out selling tickets for upwards of $70. The crowd also broke the attendance record with 76,200 there to see the show.

Entire documentaries have been dedicated to delving into the show's events for Led Zeppelin at The Silverdome. Here's the most recent one:

Led Zeppelin played for 3 hours with no break. Jimmy Page rocked the stage with his shirt open with his bandmates, Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones. During that three hours, they played seventeen songs, starting with "The Song Remains the Same" and ending with "Stairway to Heaven" and wrapped with two encore songs:  "Rock and Roll" and "Trampled Under Foot."

The website LedZeppelin.com has an amazing resource of old clippings, photos and articles that cover so many of the band's journey. It's totally worth checking out. There is something magical about seeing all of these old tickets and photos saved and uploaded by the fans over the years.   In 1977, 16-year-old Elaine Alexander of Mt Clemens said "Words can't even explain it. It was great!"

Footage recently surfaced from this landmark show.  It was synced with audio.  While the quality isn't perfection, it's still by far, the best video/audio from the show that has come to light since 1977.  Here's the video.

The complete setlist from the show is below along with as many audio clips as we could find on YouTube. The quality is not good, but it's definitely from The Led Zeppelin Silverdome show.

Led Zeppelin opened their April 1977 show at Pontiac Silverdome with "The Song Remains the Same"

While we are lucky to have any recordings of this event, YouTube can be fickle and there is no video/audio listed for this song (from the Silverdome show). Here's an alternate performance from L.A. on the same tour:

Again, YouTube seems to not want to work with this particular song, however you can watch/listen to it on YouTube. OR, check out this video and audio someone HOOKED up from MSG in 1973.