Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson has revealed that she and her sister Nancy once walked out of an early Led Zeppelin show after being shocked by frontman Robert Plant's suggestive lyrics.
Speaking with Premier Guitar on an episode of their 100 Guitarists podcast devoted to Jimmy Page, Wilson describes the sisters' first experience of watching Led Zeppelin, at a show at the Green Lake Aqua Theater in Seattle, WA., in May 1969.
"The singer, he’s so suggestive," remembers Wilson. "He’s got his shirt 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.'”
“We were in a little folk band at the time. 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. We were scandalised, and we walked away."
The Lemon Song was the tenth song on Led Zeppelin's 12-song setlist that night, so the future Heart founders missed the two closing numbers, Communication Breakdown and Whole Lotta Love.
Wilson claims that Led Zeppelin were supporting pop-soul act The 5th Dimension, famous for their 1967 single Up, Up And Away, at the show, although the Led Zeppelin gig archive suggests that the other acts were Three Dog Night and Vancouver band Spring.
