Schenectady’s Museum of Innovation and Science is launching a new series of planetarium shows called Rockin’ the Dome. The show will pay tribute to the monsters of rock who visited the Electric City more than five decades ago.
English rock group Led Zeppelin landed at the Schenectady Aerodome August 20th 1969, eight months after their debut record was released.
East Greenbush resident Patti Baye was there. She was 18 when the band showed up to play at the converted bowling alley on State Street.
“I was sitting in the bar talking to the bartender and the next thing I know Jimmy Page is on one side of me and Robert Plant is on the other calling me bird, that’s what the English guys called the girls. Both of them were trying to pick me up and I kind of thought it was pretty funny,” she said.
Baye says Plant was funny, animated and quick-witted, while Page was intriguing but quiet.
The band played two shows, one at 8 p.m., for those younger than 18, and one at 11 p.m., for those older.
According to Led Zeppelin’s official website, the setlists that night included “Dazed and Confused,” “You Shook Me,” and “Communication Breakdown.”
They were paid $8,000 for the night.
That night, Patti says her future husband and then music promoter, Fred Baye, discovered that Plant would be playing on his 21st birthday.
So, the late Fred Baye planned an after-hours birthday party.
“What I can tell you is that it was a wild party, by the end of the night the birthday cakes were on the ceiling the vending machines were tipped over, the legs on the couch were gone there was two inches of beer on the floor and they had a great time,” Patti Baye said.
The anniversary comes the same week the Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science, or MiSci, is launching a new planetarium show series – Rockin’ the Dome.
The first band to be featured in the series is Led Zeppelin, and beginning Saturday attendees will hear tracks like “Rock and Roll,” “Kashmir” and “Stairway to Heaven” as geometric shapes, orbs of light and kaleidoscopic imagery dance across MiSci's planetarium dome.
To commemorate the band’s legendary performance more than half a century later, MiSci’s opening tickets will cost the same as they did in the 1969 Aerodrome performance.
MiSci President Chris Hunter says the show is a great combination of art and technology.
“There’s about 10 songs, 48 minutes, so the preview today was ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ But we got ‘Black Dog,’ ‘Kashmir, ‘Immigrant Song,’ all the greatest hits,” Hunter said.
Schenectady Public Library Executive Board President Madelyn Thorne says she frequented the Aerodrome when she was younger.
Though the venue’s existence was short-lived – it was open only for a few years in the late ’60s and early ’70s before being demolished -- Thorne describes the Aerodrome as the ’60s in a nutshell.
“It wasn’t quite as professional; it wasn’t quite as controlled. So, the jam session could go on for 40 minutes, the drum solos would go on for forever. And you’re just there listening to amazing music in Schenectady in an old bowling alley and having the time of your life,” Thorne said.
But Thorne wasn’t at Led Zeppelin’s show because she was grounded. She would not explain further.
“I will say, I deserved it,” Thorne said.
Other noteworthy performers to rock the Aerodrome in its few years include Steppenwolf, The Kinks, Janis Joplin, Jeff Beck, The Box Tops and B.B. King.
With MiSci’s tribute this weekend, a niche piece of both the Electric City and Led Zeppelin’s history will play on.
Patti Baye says Plant remembered the night 30 years later.
“Fred Baye was in an airport in Atlanta, and he ran into Robert Plant, and he said ‘Robert Plant. Fred Baye here. Do you remember your 21st birthday party at the Aerodrome?’ And Robert Plant turned around and said ‘I sure do, Schenectadee Schenectadoo,’” Patti Baye said.
The Led Zeppelin show runs through September 6, with a Pink Floyd theme following on September 13.
