A crew member who worked on Led Zeppelin’s 1977 US tour and was present at the Day on the Green Festival where violence erupted backstage has spoken about his experience for the first time following our articles, telling LedZepNews “the tour had turned toxic” with incidents including John Bonham collapsing on his drum kit.

Kim Johnson, an employee of touring equipment business Showco, travelled with Led Zeppelin on the tour and handled Bonham’s drum monitors, working with Bonham’s drum tech Mick Hinton.

LedZepNews spoke to Johnson following the publication of The Day on the Green Files, our series of articles on backstage violence in 1977 based on legal filings, interviews and newly released US government records.

“By the time we got to Oakland the vibes of the tour had turned toxic,” Johnson tells LedZepNews. “Led Zeppelin had nothing to prove. They had money, celebrity, and what started out as just another ‘huge rock star’ tour had taken on a hue of hedonistic excesses.”

“Page was a junkie surrounded by enablers and boot lickers,” Johnson recalls. “Most tours usually took on the energy of the band or the management and this one had turned very dark. With Page’s addictions, Bonham’s alcoholism, [and Peter] Grant’s power trip mixed with the twisted fuck named [John] Bindon, the whole circus had turned nuts.”

Johnson is blunt in his assessment of the members of Led Zeppelin at this time. “On that tour, Page was a junkie, Bonham was a drunk, John Paul Jones was a ghost and Plant was a decent guy,” he claims.

As for the band’s employees, Johnson claims “Bindon was a sociopath and Grant was a fucking criminal. [Richard] Cole tried to appease everybody in the organisation,” he adds.

Bonham’s ability to perform and cope with the excesses of the tour had degraded during the 1977 US tour, Johnson says. “At the beginning, [in] rehearsals, [the] first few shows, Bonham was involved in getting what he wanted in his monitors, but as the tour went on the energy became darker.”

“By that I mean there were outside factors (drugs, groupies, peer pressure, celebrity and all the power that come with that) that affected his playing,” he continues. “Towards the end part of the tour, Bonham’s drinking would interfere with his job.”

“On two occasions he dropped down [on to] his drum kit and had to be taken to the dressing room. The band went into the acoustic set. Doctors got him up and going so he finished the show. I think he was someone who was affected by the people around him. He was never angry with me, occasionally bitching about the monitors, but kept it civil.”

According to Johnson, the unhappy atmosphere on the tour laid the groundwork for the backstage violence on July 23, 1977.

“Take this rolling shitshow and come into Oakland, where Bill Graham was the man, and the power conflict between Grant and Graham was evident,” he says. “Showco crews worked with [Bill Graham Productions] people all the time and they were great. So was Graham, but with Zeppelin’s assholes, the shows took on a funk that we were used to but not them.”

Johnson wasn’t present in the backstage area when Jim Matzorkis was assaulted along with Jim Downey and Bob Barsotti, but word travelled fast amongst people working at the festival.

“I was on stage when it went down and it wasn’t till one of Graham’s people came by and told me what had happened,” he says. “Pissed is an understatement.”

Johnson recalls Graham’s employees being angry over the violence and the attacks on three of their colleagues.

Led Zeppelin eventually turned up the following day to play the second festival show, but the backstage mood was even worse. “The next day [Bill Graham’s crew] was livid, they had brought chains, baseball bats, tire thumpers and they waited … these guys were pissed,” Johnson says.

“After the show was over I vividly remember the band and the asskissers going up the ramp followed by the management then all of Graham’s crew following with assorted weapons,” Johnson says. “At this point nobody was tearing down the show.”

Johnson claims to have seen Grant being arrested on July 25, 1977. “The Oakland PD had to use three sets of cuffs on the guy,” he says. “He was screaming so hard that he was spewing and spitting. I thought he might stroke out right there, but no.”