More than 100 previously unseen photographs of Led Zeppelin performing at Knebworth Festival in the UK on August 4, 1979 have been published online after the photographer Ahmed Raza shared the images with LedZepFilm and LedZepNews.
Raza’s photographs give a unique perspective on the first of Led Zeppelin’s two performances at the 1979 Knebworth Festival. They show John Bonham and his brother Mick standing on stage searching for their sister Deborah in the crowd and also show Peter Grant watching from the side of the stage as Led Zeppelin performed.
The photographs show Raza’s journey to the festival, beginning in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 3, 1979. He also photographed Fairport Convention and Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, who performed at the festival prior to Led Zeppelin.
You can view all of Raza’s photographs in this Flickr album which is also embedded below. Click the left and right arrows to move through the photos:
The below photo, which has previously circulated, shows John Bonham standing at the side of the stage with his brother Mick Bonham. Mick was scanning the crowd with binoculars as they attempted to spot their sister Deborah Bonham after they learned she had travelled to the festival.
“After seeing the amount of people out there, and knowing his kid sister was out there, John got worried,” Mick Bonham wrote in his 2003 book “Bonham By Bonham”. “He suggested that we ought to go up on stage and look for her. Even with the binoculars I had with me I knew it was going to be tricky, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. John and I took turns with the glasses until he had to go to get ready, but he told me to keep looking. Not being funny, but I wouldn’t have been able to find her even if I’d have had the friggin’ Hubble Telescope.”
The man on the lefthand side of the photo with his back to the camera is likely to be a Showco employee. He’s wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd Fall 1976 tour T-shirt and a cabinet in front of the Bonham brothers has “Showco” printed on it.
We spoke to Raza over email and he kindly shared his recollections of the festival:
Knebworth 1979 was a beacon to all UK fans once the announcement was made, and that tickets were to be on sale at HMV outlets across the land.
Colin and Alan Hesketh, two brothers from Bury, got five tickets for themselves and included Steve and Mark, also from Bury, and for me in Edinburgh. I had got to know Colin and Alan after answering an ad in Tight But Loose magazine edition two which Dave Lewis had just started producing. We swapped bootleg tapes and generally enthused, discussed and revelled in all things Zeppelin.
Alan I think was the one who wanted the gig documented for our personal memory. So I borrowed my little brother’s Canon A1 and a 400mm Tamron lens to add to the 50mm lens. And three rolls of 36 frames of 35mm film.
Colin was going to tape the show using a big twin deck Japanese cassette player which had a pop-up condenser mic and two TDK chrome C90 tapes.
We decided to head on down in the car from Bury, leaving early at dawn to arrive at Knebworth around 11am. I had arrived the night before to Bury to join the other four Led Zeppelin penpals meeting for the first time.
Driving straight down meant we were fresh and had no hassles to deal with in camping. We parked up and headed over to the entry gates. Hundreds of tickets were just being dumped into buckets by the stewards and I was almost tempted to grab a handful as there were no eyes on them. Being a naive and fearful 18 year old meant I didn’t risk being kicked out.
We got as close to the front and middle of the stage as we politely could. We found an ideal space for five and sat down. Things got going just after noon with Fairport Convention coming on, but the afternoon sort of dragged by as our own minds and hearts were just eagerly anticipating Led Zeppelin.
I was amazed at the size of the PA. Each side was the size of a four-storey building, covered in black sheeting. All around was a sea of denim, covered in patches with names of bands on them. Lots of hair too. I wandered once over to the toilets which were deep pits with dodgy wooden frames and slats. Very dodgy. I passed stalls on the way back selling burgers and onions and a few vans selling cider in 1 gallon jugs – choice of green or red in colour!
Anyway, the day passed into evening and Led Zeppelin came on at 8.45pm. Everyone was standing at this point with people behind us roaring at us to sit down. It’s captured on the tape. Colin agreed to loan me his shoulder to help stabilise the photography. He and Alan shared the weight of the cassette recorder as they taped the show.
Eventually we all were sat down and just got into the performance. We said little to each other, just took it all in. Here we were, enjoying the band after years of just bootleg tapes to get that in-concert experience.
Once back in Edinburgh, I got the negatives developed and extra sets of photos made for Colin, Alan, Steve and Mark. Colin in the meantime made a set of first gen tapes for me. I then copied these first gen tapes for myself and others and then left the first gen tapes aside for safe storage.
The photos eventually got traded in the 1990s with someone who gave me a big pile of CDRs of Led Zeppelin bootlegs. But the photos were a wonderful reminder of that great day and I did colour-photocopy most of them before swapping them for copies of bootlegs.
Eric Levy and I got talking a few weeks ago. He had just uploaded to YouTube an upgrade of 8mm video footage which really struck home with me. It seemed to be shot from very close to our vantage point all those years ago. I posted a comment to that effect and mentioned that somewhere I had both tape and three rolls of negatives. Eric responded to my comment and asked if these could be found and if I was willing to share. I said of course and we did it.
fantastic any rare photos of later day zeppelin are worth seeing like the ones of john and mick bonham and of grant watching is lads back were they belong on stage sad to think in 11 months time it was all over
Having seen zepp twice in 1975 at Earls court it was a real treat seeing them again with a few mates. They were definitely the greatest never to be beaten.
I was lucky enough to see them at Knebworth on August 11th and was in the front row all day…I took a lot of photos from there with my 35mm SLR some are good but the lighting was difficult happy days
These are amazing! I had no idea the tech for a live screen that large existed then!
Just FYI I was born in ’70.
Vg
I got my tickets from Virgin Records, not HMV. Long story, but I had to ‘miss’ the school bus, so that I then had to catch the public bus into town and connect to another public bus to school. Needless to say, the school bus was late as I hid in a nearby field. That left me a 600-yard sprint to catch the public bus. I got to Virgin records at 8:50 for a 9:30 opening. The queue was huge! I managed to get 3 tickets, before I got a second bus to school, arriving just in time for lunch! Happy days indeed.
Best concert ever, travelled down on train from Kirkcaldy with my mate with only a blanket to lie on.
No mention of Chas n Dave, who also performed that magical weekend. I was only 17 at the time but remember it as if it was yesterday.
Wonderful, just the timing is a out. Being 15 years old that day, I made sure I checked my watch when they came on stage. It was 9:40pm . They played straight through to12:10 then three encores took it to nearly 01:00
Sorry, just very vivid memories of an excited 15 year old.
I had pics from the sound check on Thursday 2nd, including one of John Bonham stood in the field listening to Jason playing. Jason got us their autographs at the end. I sold them some years ago which I very much regret. Your pics are excellent and bring back memories of this great event.