The Day The King Elvis Presley Met Led Zeppelin

Back in the 1970s, two giants of music finally met in person. Led Zeppelin met Elvis Presley in person.

The meeting took place at the Forum in Los Angeles in May 1974. Led Zeppelin was in town to attend a launch party for their record label, Swan Song, and attended Elvis's Forum show the following night.

May 11th, 1974, will be the 50th anniversary of this historic date when two of the most successful live acts of the 1970s crossed paths. The King Elvis was looking forward to meeting the band for other reasons. Elvis knew the band was outselling him at that time. One of his teenage step-brothers was a huge Zep fan. Knowing that Elvis allegedly said to him, ‘I may not be Led Zeppelin, but I can still pack ’em in."

The Elvis / Zeppelin encounter reportedly lasted an hour and a half, featured some car talk between Elvis and John Bonham, and involved a lot of conversation about music. Elvis asked for the band’s autographs, telling them he was getting them for his daughter Lisa Marie.

So they talked briefly, and then we said goodbye and shook hands. Robert and the boys were heading for the elevator, and suddenly, Elvis swung around the door and said, ‘Hey, Robert! He started singing Love Me Tender, and I was singing (it) to him, and we were all crying.”

Jimmy Page had turned down the chance to meet Presley in 1969 after flying to Las Vegas to see Presley perform after mixing Led Zeppelin's II album in New York, accompanied by then-girlfriend Pamela De Barres. Invited backstage by one of the singer's so-called Memphis Mafia, Page turned down the invite.

'Hot Dog' is a recorded song on Led Zeppelin's 1979 album, In Through the Out Door. A fun, rollicking tune done in the style of a country hoe-down, it features some Elvis Presley-like vocals from singer Robert Plant.

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.