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The Battle Over Led Zeppelin

02/28/2011
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(Gibson) On this day in 1970, Led Zeppelin played a gig in Copenhagen as The Nobs after Eva Von Zeppelin, a relative of the airship designer, threatened to sue if the family name was used in Denmark. Today, Gibson takes a look back: By February of 1970, Led Zeppelin had released their first two albums and had become one of the big names in rock and roll. But the legendary band didn't use their name when they played a show in Denmark on this day in 1970. For the first, and only time, Led Zeppelin were billed as The Nobs.

The name change stemmed from an incident from when the group played Copenhagen the year before. Eva von Zeppelin, a descendant of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (creator of the famous aircraft), was unhappy that a rock band was becoming famous off of her family's name. She even tried to prevent Led Zeppelin from recording a performance for Danish television, saying that the band sounded like a bunch of "shrieking monkeys." The attempt didn't work and the boys performed for the TV Byen cameras, as planned.

But Jimmy Page and company weren't upset with Frau von Zeppelin, and invited her to have tea with the band after the taping, just to prove to her that they were a bunch of decent guys. By all accounts, the meeting went very well and everyone got along very well. Unfortunately, things went south quickly as von Zeppelin was leaving. more on this story

Gibson.com is an official news provider for the Day in Rock.

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