John Bonham’s Bathrobe Sold For Impressive 23K

Bryan Adams's former guitar tech, Mark (Lance) Stadnyk, was a rock memorabilia collector. Bryan Adams has an extensive microphone collection.  While on tour, during downtime, Lance would shop local places looking for microphones for Bryan and assorted items for himself, but his prized possession wasn't found in a pawn shop. It was given to him by John Bonham.  Lance's prized possession was John Bonham's bathrobe.

Wayne Learie was the auctioneer for Lance Stadnyk's recent memorabilia auction (Lance passed in 2022).  Wayne knew Lance and related this story to The Vancouver Sun:

“I was at Lance’s one day and I said, ‘What is your most prized possession?’ ” said Learie. “He said, ‘I’ve got John Bonham’s housecoat. I was in the States at a big party and we were all hammered. At five in the morning, I left my room and Bonham was coming down the hallway wearing the housecoat.’

“Lance said, ‘Hey John, give me that housecoat for a souvenir.’ And he said Bonham whipped it off and said, ‘Take it!’"

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/led-zeppelin-drummers-housecoat-beatles-memorabilia-competing-bids-auction/wcm/656042e7-956a-4666-9484-06c84f0f5b10/amp/

The auction is over, however, you can check out the items listed on icollector.com. Most of Lance's collection were Beatles' items, but the John Bonham bathrobe was in a league of its own.  According to Wayne Learie, there was a bidding war for the bathrobe between two Americans and a Canadian. The winning bid came from Texas.  With fees, the final price for the bathrobe was $23,780.  The robe has "Bonzo" embroidered on the front and the Swan Song logo on the back. You can find out more about the auction and the prices items sold for HERE.

Delve into the history of one of the biggest concerts of all time.  Read on for the details behind what (at the time) was the largest single-band show in history (more than 76,000 people showed up).

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.