Heh. This was just posted on another site, promoting a book about the arena in Toronto. A Forward by Geddy Lee:
“I know it sounds somewhat trite to say that an album changed your life but the first Led Zeppelin album had that kind of impact on me. The record was released early in 1969, and word of it’s greatness was spreading with such intensity that by the time they were enroute to Toronto for a gig at the Rock Pile, getting tickets had become nothing short of frenzied...
I had zero money at the time and my mom was not very accommodating in such matters...my bandmates Alex Lifeson and John Rutsey had managed to scrape together enough coin but I couldn’t...this required drastic measures and so I took the typewriter that my grandmother had bought me for my birthday and ventured down to Church St and pawned it in one of the shops that dotted that street. Success. I guiltily accepted the money and went straight out to buy my ticket for the show that was now being referred to as “Mighty Monday”!
We lined up extra early for the 8 p.m. general admission show and we ended up in the 2nd row right in front of Jimmy Page...effin amazing! The band floated onto the stage and started rippin’ into a killer version of the old Yardbirds classic, “Train Kept a Rollin”- they were super loud, and the summer heat kept rising in that old Masonic Temple and the crowd was so seriously jacked and stomping that I remember little bits of plaster falling from the ceiling of the place. They literally brought down the house!
The unforgettable birth of heavy rock as far as my bandmates and I were concerned. I left the show breathless and ecstatic and it wasn’t until the next day that I started trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get my typewriter out of hock before my mom found out!”
Geddy knew greatness. That debut album is absolutely amazing.