[4] In the lead-up to the concerts Led Zeppelin undertook extensive rehearsals at Bray Film studios near London, and attended the venue at Knebworth in order to inspect the site, complete a publicity photograph shoot and perform a soundcheck.

The police believed that 200,000 people had turned up each night, Sainsbury's lost 150 trolleys and Tesco 75% of their stock, and Lord Cobbold [owner of Knebworth House] ended up in Court.

[4]Similarly, music journalist Chris Welch has observed that the audiences "included a whole new generation who had never seen Led Zeppelin in their prime.

With such a long layoff since their last performances in Britain, and in the wake of the punk rock revolution, Led Zeppelin were now considered to be obsolete in some quarters.

[4][5] The negative reviews prompted the ire of Robert Plant, who made sarcastic reference to them on-stage during the 11 August show.

But instead we went back in such a flurry and a fluster to 210,000 people in a field and 180,000 more the next day [sic], surrounded by Keith and Ronnie and Todd Rundgren.

"[4] Welch, who also attended the concerts, similarly suggests that: Fans [at Knebworth] were still supporting the band, but there was definitely a feeling [Led Zeppelin's] days were numbered.

Audience reaction at Knebworth had not been overwhelming and many seemed content to stand and stare, like mesmerised spectators at an alien ritual, a far cry from the hysteria of earlier shows.

Robert Plant seemed perplexed at the silence between songs, when you could practically hear a pin drop in that vast, cold field.

[5]The two concerts were professionally recorded on the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio (engineered by George Chkiantz) and also videotaped, with live images beamed directly onto a giant screen behind the stage.

[4] There was a plan for the footage to be used on a television special (this is one of the reasons the band members wore the same clothes on both nights) but this idea was never realised.

Two songs from the band's eighth studio album, In Through the Out Door, were played for the first time on stage, namely "Hot Dog" and "In the Evening".

A query by Grant over ticket sales for the concerts resulted in him sending aerial pictures of the crowd to a monitoring laboratory in Nassau, New York, in order to establish the extent of the attendance.

[4] This disagreement eventually forced Bannister's concert promotion company into liquidation,[9] which allegedly left unpaid bills of £50,000 for the police and £2,000 to the local borough council.