Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page revealed in a new Fender video how he saw Keith Relf go ‘punk’ during an onstage freak out at a The Yardbirds show. Page recently revealed how border officers disrespected him.
“Jeff being in The Yardbirds… I’m still living with my parents at the time, and I hear this sort of car roar, and I thought, ‘What’s that?’. I didn’t know it was a car, I just heard this thing rolling up, and I looked out the window and I saw it was a Corvette Stingray outside and there’s somebody getting out.
Of course, it’s Jeff. He’s coming out, he’s holding this guitar, and he knocks on the door. I said, ‘Come in, Jeff.’ He’s saying that they’ve just done a sort of a new deal and he bought this Stingray; he said, ‘Here, this is yours,’ and he gave me that Telecaster that he’d been using.
He said, ‘This is yours for getting me in The Yardbirds.’ Obviously, I was really moved, it’s got a lot of love in that gesture of giving it to me.
I happened to be with Jeff one night at a concert where there was a bit of a fuss on stage and Keith Relf, he was really sort of shouting at the audience, what can only be described as a punk performance, it was fantastic actually.”
Page revealed how Led Zeppelin’s money was robbed at a hotel in a recent post. Page wrote about The Yardbirds on Instagram, “On this day in 1966, I played Dayton’s Auditorium with The Yardbirds.
This was the first date of any American tour for me, and on this day I played on bass. In fact, although having had two visits to the States prior to this, this was the first time I ever played a show there. The first date here in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the 5th of August was at Dayton’s Department Store, 8th Floor Auditorium and the surroundings felt quite surreal.”
Ultimate-Guitar transcribed Page’s Fender video remarks.