worked with me on this lithograph project. He was excellent, always challenging me in a positive way so we could make the lithograph the best it could be. I wanted shots that would most accurately capture, as I said earlier, the intensity and essence of that “first ever” appearance of The New Yardbirds, from that September 7, 1968 performance. The lithograph sequence of Robert Plant demonstrates the tremendous visual impact he has on stage when performing. It was quite an involved process.
REDDON:
It was worth the effort, because I find that really intensifies things, right in the middle of The First Performance lithograph. It’s sensational the way those are interpolated into the grand scheme of the whole work.
ANGEL:
Without getting too involved, we had to place such images by working with them on the computer. It was a great deal of exacting work. It turned out well but was it was painstaking, as you may imagine. It all had to be done in phases, because it was so exacting. The collaboration between Flemming Brantbjerg and me was excellent on this project.
As I said a moment ago, in addition to speaking to Robert Plant about those Teen Club photos, the idea for creating The First Performance lithograph also came from an experimental 20 x 30” photo of him from that performance. I’d never done anything in such a large format before and I had to customize some of the apparatus in my darkroom to do it. It was an involved process because of the large size of the photographic paper I had to work with to do it.
The reason I mention this attempt at the large print of Plant is because I picked that 1968 photo of him from the Gladsaxe Teen Club performance I had taken. It was my first attempt to make such a big print of anybody. Plant and The New Yardbirds must have really made an impression for me to give that a try. Thinking of that again was what prompted me to do The First Performance lithograph.
REDDON:
Do you recall the day you came across The New Yardbirds photographs of the first performance that eventually became the First Performance of Led Zeppelin lithograph?
ANGEL:
I didn’t come across the negatives. I knew I had them! I just didn’t know it was their first show ever in public. I’d had people email me and tell me that “you photographed Led Zeppelin’s first performance ever!” You know, it wasn’t until around 2001 that I realized I had photos from the very first time The New Yardbirds had played before an audience.
From time to time, I would get an email saying so but I thought, “Ah, they probably played a couple of gigs in England first; why would they go to Denmark for the first gig?” It didn’t really seem logical. I found out why, of course, though.
REDDON:
That must have been quite a realization for you when you found out that you actually had documented “the first-ever public performance” of Jimmy Page’s new band, The New Yardbirds.
ANGEL:
Yes, that’s true. I knew I had photographed them very early on but I had no idea it was their very first performance! When I saw them at Gladsaxe Teen Club that first time in September 1968 and photographed them, though, there was a “special energy” from their show.
REDDON:
Do you still have unpublished photos from that Saturday, September 7, 1968, performance of The New Yardbirds?
ANGEL:
I recently scanned a few more frames. I had previously skipped these for various reasons…it was like, four, five, six or something additional ones, to put on my website. I skipped them only because they were totally impossible to make in the darkroom.
When they’re treated in the computer program, Adobe® Photoshop®, it’s possible to get something out of them. I don’t think I’ve got them on my site yet, but I will soon. So in the very near future, everything from that first night will be on my website.
REDDON: How many years did you take photos at the Gladsaxe Teen Club?
ANGEL: From 1966 until 1969, when it stopped.
REDDON: There must be a great deal of photos!
ANGEL:
Yes and no. Maybe not as many photos as you would think. It was about saving film that was expensive. That’s another reason I knew Led Zeppelin was special.
REDDON:
Still on the topic of The First Performance lithograph, you told me you had an exhibition in May 2006 at the annual Polar Music Prize awards ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Led Zeppelin was one of the recipients of the award that year, for 2006. From what I understand, the Polar Music Prize is awarded to musicians in recognition of outstanding achievements in the creation and furtherance of music.
You mentioned Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant were there. They saw your exhibition and your lithograph,The First Performance. What was their reaction to your work? Did you talk about that performance The New Yardbirds put on, thirty-eight years earlier at theTeen Club?
ANGEL:
Yes, they shared a lot of funny memories and details. They came at two different times and they stayed for an hour or more on both occasions. We went over each individual photo on the walls. We went back and forth, talking about all kinds of things. They were sharing these funny details in one of the shots of them from ’68…and others I took from that first performance, you can clearly see the clothes that John Paul Jones is wearing.
REDDON: He was wearing clothes that looked like something a medieval king would wear!
ANGEL:
There’s actually an interesting little story behind that one. I’ll get to that in a moment about John Paul Jones’ clothes from that evening in ’68. Also, they reminisced about the instruments and gear they saw in those ’68 photos. It was great. It was like a high school reunion! You know, old boys talking about when they were young. So it was not a question of stars coming in to talk then. That’s why it was a very pleasant conversation. It went here, there and everywhere. Just chatting along as we went from photo to photo. More questions arose as our conversation continued.
Anyway, John Paul Jones told me about the clothing that he was wearing for that ’68 performance. I pointed out Bonham was just wearing a T-shirt, while Page was wearing a white silk-like shirt. And Plant was wearing a flower-patterned blouse or whatever.
But John Paul Jones was wearing something out of about the 17th century. When you look at the lithograph, you can see what I mean. This strange suit with these “fluffy things” in the sleeves, and all that. And I said to John Paul, “What was that all about?”
He replied that when he found out The Yardbirds were going to go on tour in September of 1968 in Scandinavia, he and his wife, Mo, went down to this old theatre company that was going out of business in London. Costumes from their wardrobe collection were being sold off. That’s where he got that outfit. When I asked John Paul if he recalled that 1968 Gladsaxe show, he said, “Yes, it was bloody hot!”
Yardbird
