In a new interview with Premier Guitar, Heart’s Nancy Wilson recalled the first time she ever saw Led Zeppelin live. While many fans would give anything to see the iconic band on stage, Nancy admitted that she left the show early because at the time she couldn’t handle Robert Plant’s suggestive moves.
“There was Led Zeppelin and Jimmy [Page] had his violin bow going and he was doing his echoplex magic playing, pretending that he’s summoning the music out of the air with his echoplex on repeat, which were physical tapes at the time,” Nancy said.
“And so we were like, ‘Oh my God.’ The singer, he’s so suggestive. He’s got his shirts wide open, he’s got his bare chest and his jeans were really low riders and he was moving in this way that was so super suggestive and we were kind of shocked. We’re like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
She continued: “We were in a little folk band at the time. So, we were from the suburbs. So we were kind of square, square little hippie chicks to be unenlightened, let’s just say. And so, they were like, ‘Oh, they’re so loud. They’re just being so suggestive and loud.’
“Then, he sang about like ‘Squeeze My Lemon’ and we’re like, ‘Oh, we must leave, we must leave the premises’ because we were just shocked. So, we actually walked out on at the Green Lake Aqua Theater.”
Despite Nancy being overwhelmed by Plant’s provocative look at the time, Led Zeppelin were a major inspiration for her and her sister/bandmate Ann Wilson. In a 2024 interview with Guitar World, Nancy explained that even though she was told women shouldn’t play rock music, she and her sister disagreed. “So we were very loud. I guess we just didn’t care,” she said.
“We wanted to channel the androgyny of rock ‘n’ roll. Guys like Robert Plant looked like really hot chicks, and we felt like we could be hot chicks or hot dudes on a big rock stage like that. Androgyny and a sense of humor were our basic survival tools, because there was no place for us at the time,” Nancy noted.
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