As I hinted at earlier, Led Zeppelin's larger than life, legendary reputation and status in the history of rock music is largely attributed to their legacy as a live act - it certainly isn't for the quantity of their studio music. Because of the hate-hate relationship with the music press, in their earlier years, their main (only) form of promotion was through word of mouth, and that meant playing a lot of gigs, and putting forth an unforgettable show. They were pioneers in creativity, experimentation, jamming, and insistent on making every show unique, with Page once commenting that their "spontaneity was on the level of ESP"
After recording and mixing Zeppelin I, the band played a few gigs in London to get their feet wet. On the same day that Plant would marry is heavily pregnant girlfriend, Maureen, they played their first gig at The Roadhouse in London. The band then promptly fled the UK, deciding to attack the US market first. Their first tour began December 26th, 1968, and wrapped up with sparsely attended shows at the end of January. It wasn't until FM radio started to embrace the band that the audiences grew. They would tour for 18 months, and it didn't take long for them to establish a reputation as the most excessive and debauched rock group at the time, a title that would last with them their entire career, and perhaps brand them as the most debauched of all time. Upon their arrival in LA, they were instantly adopted by the legendary groupie contingent The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) - the worlds most famous groupies of the 60s. They would also later run in circles with Chicago's Plaster Casters (known for taking plaster moulds of band members' "instrument"). Not only did they fulfill the hype with "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll" - hell, they may have been the originators of the term, but there were stories that would go well beyond that - but, we'll leave some of those stories (except for the most infamous one) for another time.
Though Zeppelin was technically playing as the support act for a few other bands, mid-way through the tour, the "headlining" acts weren't even showing up. On the final date of their first US tour, in support of Iron Butterfly, they might as well have been the headliners. Living off the fame of their single In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Iron Butterfly refused to go on after Zeppelin's 2-hour set. They would tour UK/Scandanavia in March and April, relegated to the pub scene, as they had not gotten any radio exposure in their homeland. Returning to the US for tour #2, the band was like caged dogs finally let loose. With their initial taste of fame, it started to go to another level... reportedly bankrupting one bar by not paying their tab, and living they typical rock 'n' roll lifestyle, They would return to UK for a more successful tour, then back to the US for Summer festivals, with Bonham starting his outlandish behaviour - at the Singer Bowl, the wasted drummer (as was par for the course with Bonzo) started stripping on stage, prompting police to rush the stage to remove him - but not before Peter Grant ushered him into the dressing room, telling Bonham he was fired if his clothes weren't on by the time the police broke down the door. The pinnacle of their legendary debauchery from these early tours was at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle - a hotel famous for allowing guests to fish from their hotel window. As legend has it, Plant, Bonham and Richard Cole were messing around with a groupie - well... more than just 'messing around'. Bonham had caught a red snapper from his room, and the groupie, being red-headed, had a matching red snapper. Cole later proclaimed "It was nothing malicious.. no one was ever hurt. She might have been hit by a shark a couple of times for disobeying orders, but she didn't get hurt'. The legend grew to such proportions (with the aid of a Super-8 video filmed by Vanilla Fudge members that never surfaced), Frank Zappa even took inspiration from the event to write the song "Mudshark" about it, though Bonham would remain adamant it was a red snapper. It's quite likely the 'legend' of the event is exaggerated far beyond the actual events that occurred that night - likely to be the case with many of the band's road stories
The band would return to Europe, then back to the US once more (for their fourth stint in 10 months) just prior to the release of Led Zeppelin II. All told, they played 139 shows, with more than 100 of them being in the US. By the end of the tour, they were headlining usually with no support act (though they opened for The Who in May - the only time the two bands performed together) and had increased their nightly fee from a few hundred quid to a rumoured $25,000+