The fact that Led Zeppelin’s mode of transport for their ’77 US tour was a refitted plane that included a bar, two bedrooms, a 30-foot couch and a Hammond organ tells you where the rock legends were at by this point: this was Led Zep at the height of superstar decadence. It’s no wonder that they had money to burn. In April that year, they’d set a new world record for the largest paid attendance at a single-artist performance when they drew 76,229 people to a concert at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, a show that grossed a massive $792,361 (also a new record). It had sold out in one day. They felt unstoppable. “I’m sure we all felt a little invincible on this tour,” Gary Carnes, head of the lighting crew, told Classic Rock’s Steven Rosen. “By being associated with Led Zeppelin, it seemed impossible not to have a sense of power. I’m sure the band felt that way, and I know everyone on the crew had a feeling of invulnerability.”
But underneath all their material pow-wow and ticket sales, the band’s 11th and final jaunt across the States was fraught with problems. First of all, they’d had to postpone some of the dates after Robert Plant caught laryngitis a few shows in. After the second performance, in Chicago, Jimmy Page had fallen ill with what Calmes called the ”rockin’ pneumonia”. Manager Peter Grant, meanwhile, was still the band’s antagonistic rock but he himself was going through a marriage break-up.
