Forty-nine years ago, English rock band Led Zeppelin sauntered onto the stage at Western Springs Stadium and put on one of the greatest shows New Zealand had ever seen.
Among the 25,000 people to purchase a $3.10 ticket was 20-year-old photographer Lloyd Godman.
Much of what he captured that night has never seen the light of day... until now.
Godman was shooting a lot of 35mm photographic stills in the early 1970s, but also captured some film footage of Led Zeppelin that night.
That particular roll of film recently surfaced in Godman's shed.
"I knew there was band stuff on it but I didn't know what, and it came back and it was the Zeppelin film."
With Godman's permission, an American Led Zeppelin archivist synched the footage to sound recordings from the Auckland event.
Although Godman's film is a bit grainy and murky, the shots are framed very tightly, he says.
"You get Robert Plant filling the whole frame, not just some dot filmed from a mile back from the stage. John Bonham is very much in the shadows… [you can see] mainly Jimmy Page and Robert Plant."
Shortly after Godman shot the Led Zeppelin performance his life took a different direction, he says, into the "ultimate hippie experience".
"I went and lived in a three-storey treehouse on Elizabeth Taylor's brother's land in Hawaii and surfed every day."
Godman does remember the event was fantastic, though.
Led Zeppelin's music is powerful and timeless, he says.
"The combination of those musicians that came together to form the group, it was like the way a cyclone forms. All the energy was there, it just came together and formed this amazing vortex that not only carried them along but carried everyone else along, as well."
