The Best Rock Concerts From 1970 No True Music Fan Will Ever Forget

While the idea that rock music used to be better in the past is certainly a matter of debate, that it mattered more to a greater number of people back in the early decades of its creation is undoubtedly true. Before the age of the internet, video games, and smart phones, there were far fewer cultural cornerstones for young people to latch on to and by which to establish themselves a part of a tribe. Rock music therefore provided a shared sphere of cultural references, an escape from the social norms of the age, and an insight into other, more hedonistic modes of living than most people of the mid-20th century were afforded.

While the consumption of physical media meant that many of the rock stars of the day became exceptionally rich through record sales, they also gained iconic status thanks to some of the notable live performances that have gone down in history as some of the most legendary concerts of all time. In 1970 alone — the year in which the flower power of the 1960s gave way to a widening and hardening of the rock genre — there were some truly unforgettable shows that listeners continue to return to today.

Possibly the greatest live rock record of all time, The Who's "Live at Leeds" was recorded on the campus of Leeds University in the U.K. on February 14, 1970. By then, the British rockers had achieved an immense level of fame and critical acclaim thanks to the release of their boundary-pushing rock opera "Tommy," which was released in 1969. The live album that resulted was something of a cash-in on this success, but just so happened to catch the band at the height of its powers.

Featuring high-octane performances of some of their greatest hits to that point — including 1965's "My Generation" and "I Can't Explain" — as well as covers of rock classics like Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" and Johnny Kidd's "Shakin' All Over," showing The Who in their full range. It goes without saying that the destructive energy the band was famous for is in full effect — indeed, the album liner notes made clear that the recording itself is uncorrected, adding to the sense of live chaos.

The atmosphere of the show was such that, if anything, it had to be toned down. As lead singer Roger Daltrey told Sounds magazine later that year: "It was one show and it was a very valid bit of plastic, you know," he said. "There was hardly anything dubbed on it — there were more things taken off than put on. Two backing voices were added, but that was only because the mike fell over. The whole thing is as it happened. We even pulled a lot of the crowd out because it was like, distracting to listen to" (per Udiscovermusic).

The live shows of Bay Area psychedelic blues rockers The Grateful Dead have achieved mythic status in the years since their heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Touring almost constantly, the band had evolved beyond the psychedelia that first brought them to prominence to both revisit folk and country and to push farther into the realms of the epic, offering dynamic live sets that ebbed and flowed over the course of several hours.

For many Dead Heads — the name by which the band's huge hardcore following is known — the epitome of their live act came on February 13, 1970, on the second night of their three-night residency at Fillmore East. The band played an incredible four sets, ranging from acoustic to fully electric, which culminated in epic renditions of some of its most ambitious songs. The Dead were known for improvising during performances, meaning they often stretched way beyond the length of their studio versions. On this particular day, highlights included versions of "Dark Star," "The Other One," and "Lovelight," each of which is over half an hour long and drawn by Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band to incredible new heights. It's a sensational set from an era in which The Grateful Dead was utterly unbeatable.

It's impossible to discuss the rock music landscape of the early 1970s without exploring the major festivals that helped bring live acts to enormous audiences across the U.S. and beyond. Of course, the festivals of the late 1960s, such as the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, are famous for setting the template that music festivals still follow today (although the truth of the matter is that Woodstock was absolute chaos). But even in the 1970s, there were still festivals that have gone down in history as some of the greatest of all time.

One of these was the second and final Atlanta International Pop Festival, which took place on Independence Day, 1970, and is remembered fondly as perhaps the last great free music festival of the era (originally ticketed, the promoters decided to throw open the gates once they realized they had underestimated demand). The concert featured some of the most in-demand acts of the day, including The Allman Brothers Band, who played two sets, B.B. King, and Procol Harum.

Headlining the concert was the ultimate rock guitarist himself, Jimi Hendrix, who, with his new Band of Gypsys, delivered an incendiary set in front of an estimated 500,000 people, the largest audience of his career. His performance was suitably iconic, with his famously unhinged take of the "Star-Spangled Banner" undoubtedly the highlight. That it took place in Atlanta at a time when the city was still segregated gave the show an even greater force, and it is considered one of the key concerts of Hendrix's career.

Jimi Hendrix was also a headliner at one of Europe's biggest music events of 1970, the U.K.'s Isle of Wight Festival, which took place at the end of August that year. With Hendrix signed on, the festival was able to attract the attention of some of rock's biggest names, who repaid the audience of up to 700,000 people — it remains Britain's biggest ever festival — for making the trip with some of the finest performances in rock history. That the festival had grown from an attendance of around just 8,000 just two years earlier indicates just how the appetite for large scale rock concerts exploded at the end of the 1960s.

Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, and other major artists from a range of music genres performed at the legendary event. But Isle of Wight 1970 was something else when it comes to rock line-ups, with The Who and The Doors both giving some of the most legendary sets of their careers, alongside appearances by The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, and more.

In many ways, Led Zeppelin's rise to prominence is emblematic of the changes taking place in rock music at the dawn of the 1970s. Their self-titled debut, released in 1969, had introduced to the world a band that had an exceptionally heavy approach to the blues. But nothing prepared listeners for their sophomore effort, released later that same year, the opening track of which, "Whole Lotta Love," showed that the 1970s were going to be a decade of big riffs, big performances, and even bigger levels of sleaze.

The magnetic band fronted by vocalist Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page was already notorious for their live shows, but Zeppelin's appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London stands as one of the historic peaks of the band's early career. The prestigiousness of the venue was not lost on Page, who told Guitar World in 2003: "Albert Hall was a massive gig for us, and we really wanted to do the best we could ... It was a magic venue. It was built in Victorian times, and you [are] in there thinking about all the musical history that has preceded you."

The performance did not disappoint: a two-hour romp through their material to that point, beginning with "We're Gonna Groove" and ending with a huge encore medley, by which time the crowd was utterly delirious. Though not released until 2003, the concert film remains some of the best footage of Zeppelin live, revealing the band's unique onstage chemistry.

It's impossible to say which concerts from the past were truly "the best" in any given year. If you wanted to, you could give the task to a musicologist, who could transcribe the performances of each musician and grade sets in terms of the combined virtuosity of those on stage. However, the results wouldn't be likely to offer much of the tangible experience of being present at these legendary shows back in 1970.

While the abilities of the musicians involved are ultimately a central part of what makes these concerts great, they are also accompanied by a strange alchemy that includes the atmosphere created by the crowd, the venue's capacity to put on such a show, as well as the concert's place in history and greater contribution to the rock genre zeitgeist. Each of these shows have become legendary in the minds of rock music fans down the years, and together they represent something of a high water mark for classic rock as it existed more than 50 years ago.