Page Places: The Charlotte Y. Martin Centre

For this installment of Page Places we are headed out to the wiles of Eastern Washington, Spokane specifically, to the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre, and the site of Led Zeppelin's fifth show on their first tour of North America. More historically important however, it was the place where Led Zeppelin can first be heard playing together live in the bootleg format.

The Kennedy Pavilion at Gonzaga in 1965

On Led Zeppelin's first tour of North America, the band began in the west with dates in Colorado, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The fifth stop on the group's itinerary was at the Kennedy Pavilion at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington on December 30, 1968. The Pavilion, which was designed for sporting events, could host up to 2,000 people, and quickly became a major stop for touring groups in the Pacific Northwest. The Pavilion hosted a number of rock acts in its history including, Iron Butterfly, The Doobie Brothers, and Chicago to name just a few. According to the owner of 4,000 Holes Record Store, and Spokane resident Bob Gallagher, the proliferation of rock acts boils down to location, location, location. "The coast, over the years, has become the place to play — just straight along the coast. It used to be Portland, Seattle and Spokane. We got everybody."

For this show Led Zeppelin, who were improperly billed as Len Zeffelin, opened for Vanilla Fudge. The band played a fiery set that concertgoers still recall to this day. Kerry Whitsitt was in the audience that night and call still remember the show "We wanted them to stay on stage the rest of the night. We were in the third row, so we were very close, and they were amazing. They were just mesmerizing basically, and I don't know as a 16-year-old, if I had ever seen performers quite like that, and performing that kind of music, they did a lot of music but it was in their own original style. They were great, and being a young woman, they were also very attractive. So, we were kind of blown out of our seat."

"Len Zeffelin"

The concert itself would be unremarkable if not for one thing, someone in the audience brought along a tape recorder. This show has the distinction of being the first recorded example of Led Zeppelin in a live setting on record. Bootlegs of this show pop up in various forms everywhere, and the sound quality itself is adequate at best, Plants vocals are very hard to discern, but the historic nature of the recording demands a listen. Even then the band was tight, and the show is remarkable if you pause to reflect on the fact the band had only been together for a few months.

Today the Kennedy Pavilion is known as the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre (ominous as this was the name of Jimmy's future flame...minus the Y.) I visited the place in August of this last year on the way back to Western Washington from a cross-country road trip I had taken. There isn't much to see really, the venue was locked at the time, but I felt it my duty to pay homage nonetheless.

A Picture I took of the Centre

If you ever find yourself driving down I-90 and find yourself in Spokane, I definitely recommend stopping at Gonzaga and checking out the major Zeppelin landmark.