A new bootleg recording of a Led Zeppelin concert has surfaced, and it’s a biggie: From the Met Center in Bloomington, it’s the very first date of their 1975 American tour on January 18th, 1975.
The show features a lot of material from the yet to be heard Physical Graffiti album, which was still about a month away from its release. It’s a fairly lo-fi recording, but it did catch the band on a good night.
Of particular interest is the fact that Jimmy Page was playing with a broken finger; an injury he sustained on his left-hand ring finger when it got crushed in a closing train door he tried to hold open for a passenger at Victoria Rail Station in London just three days before the Minnesota show.
He adopted what he called a “three finger technique” on that leg of the tour, playing through the pain from a type of injury that normally takes 6-8 weeks to heal.