A Book Of Led Zeppelin

THE NOBS

Led Zeppelin's performances in Copenhagen, Denmark, were rather strange, as for a concert in 1970 they were not called Led Zeppelin; they were billed, for one night, as The Nobs.

It all started during an early 1969 tour of Europe. When they were in Denmark, an aristocrat called Eva von Zeppelin (the granddaughter of the man who invented the Zeppelin aircraft) became displeased over the band name of Led Zeppelin, saying it dishonoured her family name. She was angry enough to attempt to stop a television appearance, describing the group as "shrieking monkeys". Unsurprisingly, it went ahead anyway.

To try to calm her down, the band invited her to meet with them for a cup of tea backstage at the television studio in an attempt to prove their were, in Jimmy Page's words 'nice young lads'. The meeting actually went alright, or as well as it could, and was described as 'cordial'. However, as she left the studio, Frau von Zeppelin saw the cover of the group's first album... Which had a picture of the exploding Zeppelin aircraft from the Hindenburg disaster on the front. That didn't go down well at all. According to Page,

"The first time we played we invited her backstage to meet us, to see how we were nice young lads. We calmed her down but on leaving the studio, she saw our LP cover of an airship in flames and she exploded! I had to run and hide. She just blew her top."

After that, all the calm from the meeting was throne out the window. Frau von Zeppelin disliked them more than ever. When Led Zeppelin announced plans to perform in Copenhagen in 1970, she threatened to sue the band if they continued to use their name, despite the bands offer of free drugs and an "all areas" backstage pass. Wow, I would've taken it.

It was then that Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, who was notorious for being very tough and certainly never one to back down from anything, decided it would be best to appease the woman by temporarily changing the band's name for their Copenhagen performance on 28th February 1970.

The name Ned Zeppelin was discussed, a name that Jimmy Page found found funny, but it wasn't chosen because it didn't really address the whole Zeppelin aspect of the name. In the end, they settled on calling themselves The Nobs, a joke on the last name of their European promoter, Claude Nobs.

"Then we shall call ourselves The Nobs when we go to Copenhagen, the whole thing is absurd," Page told the Melody Maker magazine.

But in the end, the incident turned out to be a good thing, as it showed the band had a sense of humour and got them a lot of positive attention and press. And Frau von Zeppelin seemed satisfied enough with their one performance as The Nobs to not threaten any more lawsuits.

People are weird.

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Picture: The Nobs play Copenhagen