50 years ago in Tampa, a sold-out Led Zeppelin show beat the Beatles

Fifty years ago this month, 56,800 fans crammed into Tampa Stadium to watch Led Zeppelin promote their new album, “Houses of the Holy.” Just four years prior, they had played to 7,000 at Curtis Hixon Hall.

The May 5, 1973, Tampa concert wasn’t just a killer show. It also shattered the attendance record for the biggest crowd at any single-act concert. Up until that point, the Beatles held that honor with their 1965 performance at New York City’s Shea Stadium, which drew about 55,000.

“Between us we’ve done something nobody’s ever done before,” singer Robert Plant told the Tampa crowd that humid Saturday night.

The Tampa show was the second stop on the band’s 30-city U.S. tour, following Atlanta, which drew over 40,000 visitors. Tickets for the sold-out performance cost $5 ahead of the show, and $6 the day of, said Led Zeppelin super fan Vernon Bryant of Tampa.

“It was just a sea of people on the football field,” Bryant said.

A crowd of fans spilled into Tampa Stadium (later nicknamed “the Big Sombrero”) when the doors opened at noon. While the band wouldn’t take the stage until around 8 p.m., most of the seats filled by midafternoon. Spectators flung Frisbees, lit up joints and built human pyramids, some as high as four tiers, while they waited.

“Though Tampa Police said that between 2 and 3:30 in the afternoon Dale Mary Highway was one mass of traffic trying for a world record in the congestion department, by 7 p.m. there was hardly a car on the highway,” the Tampa Tribune reported.

At dusk, a crackle of fireworks welcomed Led Zeppelin to the stage.

“Musically, Led Zeppelin crashed and pounded their way through a performance that made every inconvenience born by those patient enough to stand the crush of humanity and the wait worth every moment,” wrote the Tampa Times. “Jimmy Page knocks more power out of his Les Paul Gibson [than] all of Tampa Electric supplies over a long hot summer.”

University of Tampa football players, like Leo O’Shinski, were recruited to help with security. He remembered fan after fan passing out due to the heat. The pressure of the crowd pushing at the barriers was relentless.

“We had a plywood wall in front of us, which was held up by two-by-fours,” he said. “We had to prevent the kids from breaking through.”

Preston Kuhn, another Zeppelin fan who lived in Tampa then, said his cousin often spoke about how difficult it was to photograph the band among the chaos.

“The crowd was getting crushed so bad it broke his camera,” Kuhn said.

First aid workers lost count of how many visitors they treated, helping people with overdoses as well as those injured in fights.

The set lasted several hours and included an intermission. Just before 11 p.m., Led Zeppelin ended with “Stairway to Heaven,” releasing hundreds of white doves.

“Everyone was holding Bic lighters up and it was beautiful,” said Glenda Youngcourt, 67. “That was the best part of the whole concert.”

Zeppelin returned to the stage for their encore, which included “The Ocean,” Bryant said. During the song, Plant bragged again about beating the Beatles.

“I think it was the biggest thrill I’ve had,” he would later tell the Associated Press. “I pretend — I kid myself — I’m not very nervous in a situation like that. I try to bounce around just like normal. But, if you do a proportionate thing, it would be like half of England’s population.”

He continued, “Tampa is the last place I would expect to see nigh on to 60,000 people. It’s not the country’s biggest city. It was fantastic.”

Led Zeppelin’s Tampa show brought in about $309,000, the Tampa Tribune reported — also beating out the Beatles’ 1965 show, which made $301,000.

Those who didn’t make it would have a chance to get the Led out four years later in 1977, when the band returned to Tampa Stadium. But that show was doomed by the weather. Led Zeppelin only completed a handful of songs before the skies opened up. The storm was so bad that the band refused to continue playing, and the rest of the show was canceled. A riot followed.

“More than 20 arrests, some drug related, were made among the 70,000 concert goers — 4,000 of whom police say stormed the concert stage when the show was called off,” wrote the Tampa Bay Times on the 40th anniversary of the show. “The windshields of two police cruisers were smashed by the angry concert-goers.”

While a rain date was discussed to make up the show, Tampa Stadium officials decided that the city instead needed time to cool off. At least 35 spectators and nine law enforcement members had been injured.

“That was horrible,” Bryant said. “Then [Tampa mayor William] Poe said, ‘That’s it, no more concerts in Tampa.’ And that’s when everyone started going to the Lakeland Civic Center.”

The promoters did show remorse, taking out a full-page ad in the papers to apologize to fans.

“Concerts West apologizes and is sorry for the humiliation & inconvenience to you and your faithful fans at Tampa Stadium, June 3, 1977.

You did everything that you could and wanted to do so much more. You are the best and deserve the best, not the worst treatment. Respectfully, Concerts West.”

The legacy of the 1973 show lasted through the band’s career.

Kuhn was one of the lucky fans who won the ticket lottery to see Led Zeppelin’s final show in 2007. He flew to London to watch them play and was shocked to see images from Tampa Stadium.

“When the lights finally went down, they played that news clip from Tampa,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Information from the Tampa Bay Times archive was used in this report.