I saw The Yardbirds at the Grande Ballroom or That's Not Jeff Beck!

Ok it's 1968. Detroit Michigan. It's May 3rd. I'm standing outside the Grande Ballroom ( we pronounced it Grandee ) looking at a playbill for the evenings performance that I had eagerly awaited. The Yardbirds! with special guests The Frost and some other group. But I was there to see The Yardbirds - one of my favorite groups. They were one of my favorite groups because Jeff Beck was their lead guitarist. I thought he was and still do the greatest guitarist around. So as I stood looking at the poster of a man with back lit frizzed out Bob Dylan/Jimi Hendrix hair I thought to myself which Yardbird is that? Well, it wasn't Keith Relf. Nor was it Chris Dreja. Could have been Jim McCarty maybe. Why would they use a picture of the drummer to represent the group though? That's how my mind worked in those younger days. Let's see who's left. Paul Samwell-Smith the bass player. Nah that wasn't him either. That left Jeff Beck. Well that's not Jeff Beck- the nose is all wrong. Hmm.  A side note. You have to understand the era. This was 1968. Even though the computer had been invented there was no Google or You Tube or any kind of instant communication to keep up with the news in the music business. Sure there were magazines about rock and roll but mostly teenybopper stuff. And it was all 3 months behind the actual happenings. So I had no idea of the personnel changes within the group. Anyway I'm in the Ballroom and what a time we had. Smoke, incense, purple haze and strobe lights. Darkened hallways, paisley, bellbottoms- man this was really the 60's wasn't it?  Suddenly The Yardbirds are on stage. Wait there are only 4 of them. What's going on? Yes Keith is still the singer/harmonica player. There's Jim on the drums but Chris is playing the bass? And wait a minute whose that playing guitar? That's not Jeff Beck! No it wasn't at all. But -- oh man I'll tell you what-- whoever it was sure knew how to play guitar! An amazing performance by the group. Although you could tell things were not quite right. Sometimes they looked a little tired to me. Keith sounded a little morose with the in between songs chatter. All in all  I left the building happy but wondering who that new guitarist was. It took some months later but I read that the young man's name was Jimmy Page! Of course later that year saw the birth of The New Yardbirds/ Led Zeppelin group. As much as I love Jeff Beck I have to admit it was Jimmy Page who inspired me to learn to play the guitar and his performance that night was spectacular. Stay Tuned.