The No.1 website for musicians
A wonderful John Myers concert poster from 23 October 1966
There are few surviving records of the gigs that The Yardbirds did together. Fans can still pick up some memorabilia, and there are preserved posters and the like in various archives, but there is no great market for souvenirs from the '60s of this band.
What of the '60s gigs?, especially the first and several subsequent ones at Eel Pie Island, famous as a jazz and blues venue?
We get a tantalising taste but no details from the book The Yardbirds by Alan Clayson: "From roughly 1964 to 1966, The Yardbirds released a series of spellbinding singles and EPs that combined blues, straight-ahead rock 'n' roll, Eastern influences, Gregorian chants, and spaghetti western guitar rhythms into an explosive, kinetic sound.
"During this time they toured the UK incessantly, and had a big-enough impact in the US to justify tours long after their hitmaking days were over. Their popularity as a live act helped establish an audience for the subsequent Led Zeppelin, and inspired much of the garage band movement."
In a review of The Best of the Yardbirds(2003) by Hal Leonard, Danish critic Mogens H Soerensen said: "Sadly I only saw The Yardbirds once here in Copenhagen, and guess what a downer: they came without the single-guitarist - Jeff Beck was ill! (meningitis, I think)."
There is a book called On The Trail Of The Yardbirds in CanadaDuring The 1960s, by Piers Hemmingsen (1997, updated 2011), which details the handful of Canadian gigs they did. He reckoned it was their songs on Canadian radio that made them so popular, but "looking back now, it just seems that The Yardbirds were totally caught up in touring the USA and that left little time for any touring of Canada. However, Capitol of Canada issued a total of five albums between September 1965 and October 1967, and all but the first of these were issued in both mono and stereo formats."
The famed Indiana Beach Monticello ballroom that saw rock luminaries like The Turtles, Janis Joplin, The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, a young Sonny & Cher, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Alice Cooper, Simon & Garfunkel and The Everly Brothers, also hosted The Yardbirds (12 Aug 1966).
German photographer Rick Knapp was there, and while so many artifacts of the '60s have vanished, his photo was taken from his pole position at front of stage, the musicians towering over him. His snaps appeared in Classic Rock magazine and some are on the Led Zeppelin site, but according to Tim Brouk, who writes about Indiana Beach: "Page looks a bit out of place playing a four-string bass instead of the six-string guitar, which he later achieved fame with in Led Zeppelin."
