Led Zeppelin's 1971 European Tour was a concert tour of Europe by the English rock band. The tour commenced on 3 May and concluded on 5 July 1971. It included one concert at Liverpool, England, which was a rescheduled date from their preceding tour of the United Kingdom. It is possible that other unverified dates in Europe were also performed during this period.
Though being very short in duration, this concert tour was well known, primarily because of the extremely violent crowd disturbance which took place at the band's concert at the Vigorelli Velodrome in Milan on 5 July. This festival appearance in front of an audience of 15,000 people was abandoned when hundreds of tear-gas wielding riot police charged into the crowd. The group were forced to leave the stage and many fans were injured. Some of the group's equipment was also damaged in the chaos. The band's singer Robert Plant later recalled:
The concert has been described as one of the low points of Led Zeppelin's career, and the band never again returned to Italy.
All track written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, except where noted.
The fairly typical set list for the tour was:
There were some set list substitutions, variations, and order switches during the tour. On 3âÂÂ4 May Led Zeppelin played "Four Sticks" (Page, Plant), the only known times it was performed by the original band. Also played on 3âÂÂ4 May was "Gallows Pole," two of only four complete known live performances, the third performance occurring later that year on 19 August 1971 at Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, Canada, and the fourth on 16 November 1971 at St Matthew's Baths Hall, Ipswich, UK.