| Tour byLed Zeppelin | |
 Poster for Led Zeppelin's concert at the Hollywood Sportatorium, used to help promote its 1971 North American tour | |
| Location |
|
|---|---|
| Associated album | Led Zeppelin IV |
| Start date | 7 August 1971 |
| End date | 17 September 1971 |
| No. of shows | 23 (including two European warm-up shows) |
| Led Zeppelin concert chronology | |
| |
Led Zeppelin's1971 North American Tour was the seventhconcert tour of North America by the Englishrockband. The tour commenced on August 7 and concluded on 17 September 1971. It included two warm-up shows inMontreux, Switzerland.
This tour took place just prior to the release of the band'sfourth album. The band had hoped to release this album in time for the tour, but various delays prevented this from occurring.[1]
This was the longest break that the band had from touring North America to date, with their last tour there having taken place almost a year previously. During the interim, the hard rock bandGrand Funk Railroad had asserted its influence on the American music market, and Led Zeppelin was keen to re-establish their live reputation through this stint of concert performances.[1]
The new material from the fourth album which was presented by the band on stage was very well received by audiences, which helped to ensure massive sales of that album when it was eventually released in November 1971.[1]
The tour is also notable for the high frequency ofcrowd disturbances which occurred at the concerts, including those at New York City,Toronto andBoston, as thebootlegs of these concerts attest.
Before this tour, Robert Plant shaved off his beard, a style which he and the rest of his bandmates had adopted the year before. John Paul Jones followed suit a month later. However, Jones would later grow a beard in late 1972 and keep it until March 1973, and then have a mustache for part of the1973 North American Tour, and also have a beard from late 1975 to early 1977.
On this tour, the band grossed $1 million.[2]
The fairly typicalset list for the tour was:
Encores (variations of the following list):
There were some set list substitutions, variations, and order switches during the tour.
