Early days (1968–1971)
With their first album not yet released, the band made their live debut under the name "Led Zeppelin" at the University of Surrey, Guildford on 25 October 1968.This was followed by a US concert debut on 26 December 1968 (when promoter Barry Fey added them to a bill in Denver, Colorado before moving on to the west coast for dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities.Led Zeppelin's eponymous debut album was released on 12 January 1969, during their first US tour. The album's blend of blues, folk and eastern influences with distorted amplification made it one of the pivotal records in the creation of heavy metal music. However, Plant has commented that it is unfair for people to typecast the band as heavy metal, since about a third of their music was acoustic.
Live in Montreux, 1970
In an interview for the Led Zeppelin Profiled radio promo CD (1990) Page said that the album took about 36 hours of studio time to create (including mixing), and stated that he knows this because of the amount charged on the studio bill.Peter Grant claimed the album cost £1,750 to produce (including artwork).By 1975, the album had grossed $7,000,000. Led Zeppelin's album cover met an interesting protest when, at a 28 February 1970 gig in Copenhagen, the band were billed as "The Nobs" as the result of a threat of legal action from aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin (a relative of the creator of the Zeppelin aircraft), who, upon seeing the logo of the Hindenburg crashing in flames, threatened to have the show pulled off the air.
