10 Greatest Music Gigs You Wish You Could Have Been At

1. Led Zeppelin - Knebworth

Zep would be high on most rock fans' list of acts they wished they'd seen, but what period would be the one to go for? Sure, there were the earliest days when they were still gigging under the banner of The New Yardbirds, but at that stage they were recycling elements of the original Yardbirds material mixed with a few generic blues-rock plodders.

Some might argue for the early club days in the UK , given that they'd be hearing the classics such as 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'Heartbreaker' whilst they were still reasonably freshly minted. There is some merit to that argument, but for the essential Led Zeppelin experience, Knebworth in 1979 cannot be beaten.

There are actually two Knebworth shows, a week apart, and they were the last gigs Zep played in the UK until their reunion gigs. They hadn't played live for a couple of years and some reviews criticised their performance, saying the band looked rusty, but for the chance to see the very best of the Zep catalogue live, this was the one to see. Page and Plant are the very epitome of all that a rock god should be at the Knebworth shows - they wrote the book on rock star posturing and they knew it.

 
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Lifelong music obsessive, regular contributor to US guitar magazines, sometime radio presenter, singer/guitarist in Star Studded Sham, true believer in the power of rock'n'roll and an amp turned up to 11, about to publish first novel, The Bulletproof Truth.