A concert promoter who once worked the rock music circuit back in the ’70s has revealed what it was like to be on the scene, as well as how he ended up being looped into working with Led Zeppelin.
Concert promoter, Danny Zelisko sat down for the interview with Rock History Music, as reported by Ultimate Guitar.
Zelisko said, “Well, what happened was – I worked this Alice Cooper show in Tucson, and after that show, they said, ‘Hey, we’re doing Led Zeppelin up at Kezar [Stadium] in San Francisco in June. Why don’t you come up for the show? And you can work at it.'”
“So I said okay – and I didn’t know if I’d make any money, I didn’t know what I’d be doing, I just went up there. And I had to report it at 5AM to the stadium on the day of the show.”
But unfortunately, his line of duties weren’t exactly what he was hoping for. He continued, “And I was immediately put to work lining all the trash cans in the stadium on the field.”
“And so I’m going around the field, ‘This was not what I had envisioned… I’m not going to work for Led Zeppelin! You’re putting the garbage can liners in the garbage cans, that’s what you’re doing…'”
Zelisko also said that he hadn’t had any contact with the band, that was until the end of the show. And he says, “it was mayhem.”
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He also recalls the price points for the tickets around those heydays and says that the tickets were $6, which he claims in ‘2021 money’ is $36.50. Zelisko continued,”They were talking about in the paper the next day – I got the review that I saved all those years, and it said something to the effect that they made a $1,500 or $2,000 a minute, which was unheard of.”
“I think it was $1,000 a minute. How long did they play? They played 180 minutes, it was six bucks a ticket… Yeah, they made almost $200,000 [over $1.2 million in 2021 money] for the show.”
“Think about that, for a stadium, in 1973! But the tickets were six bucks!
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