An offer from John Bonham - Led Zeppelin March 6th 1971

On March 6th 1971, Led Zeppelin played their first show in the Irish Republic at the National Stadium.
The gig was sold out and I had no ticket. Nonetheless, as I had been writing for my early fanzine Freep and others, I decided to go to the venue to see about the possibility of getting an interview.
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I arrived at about 4pm, knocked on the main door and was greeted by an elder member of the Stadium boxing club. I told him I wanted to interview the band. This was in the days before heavy security, so he simply said “down the back” and admitted me. I went to the dressing room and met the only member of the band who was there at the time, drummer John Bonham.
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I politely asked for an interview and he said he would as long as we didn’t talk about music! I knew he had an interest in Hot Rod cars, a subject that I had a passing interest in because of the graphic work of Big Ed Daddy Roth. We soon set up a rapport and ended up talking for some time. I later realised that he was only a couple of years older than me, so could relate to him. We talked as friends would. I didn’t have a tape recorder back then and simply took hand written notes. As show time neared, I thanked him for his time and said I would have to go as I didn’t have a ticket. He told me not to worry about it, that I could sit on the stage behind his drum kit! True to his word he lead me to the stage. These shots are taken from where I sat, with a very cheap Instamatic Kodak camera with no flash. I didn’t take many shots as the atmosphere was overwhelming, and it was loud .. very loud .. Afterwards, John took me backstage and we continued to talk, when I realised that I was the only person in the room other than the band and Peter Grant. As the evening drew to a close, Robert Plant invited me to join them in the nightclub, but I had to refuse as I had to be in class early the next morning and had no way of getting home! So, the story ends there .. with me turning down a night out with Led Zeppelin.
I presented the interview to a publication only to be told that they didn’t want an interview with a drummer! So the piece never saw the light of day and was lost - perhaps a good thing, we’ll never know.