Any band getting back together must have a good reason to get back on that stage. It’s easy to figure out why some people either don’t want to speak to each other or are too past their prime to make the magic happen like they id in the early days, and it’s no surprise why bands like The Police have only done one legitimate reunion before going back to their solo joints. But if there was one band that should have had some more time with their fans during their reunion, it was Led Zeppelin.
But when talking about getting back with his old mates, Robert Plant has been the one hold-out, and it’s not hard to see why, either. It’s impossible to expect him to channel that ‘Percy’ persona every time he takes the stage, so he has far more weight to carry on his shoulders outside of Jimmy Page playing his signature licks and Jason Bonham standing in for his old man behind the drum kit.
Then again, that doesn’t mean that Plant has been completely against getting back together. The Page/Plant pseudo-reunion did make for some interesting musical moments when they redid some of their old tunes, and even when he performs with Allison Krauss, hearing him do more folksy versions of tunes like ‘The Battle of Evermore’ is far more interesting than hearing him stretch himself for ‘Rock and Roll’ or ‘Immigrant Song’.
Celebration Day may have been the last time Plant officially got back together with something called Led Zeppelin, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a few one-off shows for fun. But while no band member looks back on Live Aid as their finest hour in the 1980s, they could make something more credible when Tony Thompson was behind the kit.
From the minute they got together in the rehearsal room, it was clear that everyone was unfocused. Everyone had the chops to pull something off, and they even had the luxury of working in Peter Gabriel’s state-of-the-art studio in Bath, but since they had no idea what to play, it was impossible to get them all on the same page, especially when Thompson had to leave halfway through when going out on tour with another band.
And while the nostalgia factor may have helped get the reunion over the line after Live Aid, Plant was much less interested after spending one too many days sitting on his hands, saying, “The whole thing dematerialised. Jimmy had to change the battery on his wah-wah pedal every one and a half songs. And I said, ‘I’m going home.’ [John Paul] Jonesy said ‘Why?’ ‘Because I can’t put up with this.’ ‘But you lived with it before.’ I said ‘Look, man, I don’t need the money. I’m off.’”
When listening to what Plant was doing then, it’s clear that he was also on a new wavelength than he was back in 1973. Now and Zen was a fine record for his solo career, but since he was coming off of his album Shaken ‘n’ Stirred, those influences from bands like Talking Heads were definitely going to clash once Jones broke out the old keyboard lines and Page started cranking out the riff to ‘Whole Lotta Love’.
So, really, the failed Zeppelin reunion in the 1980s had much less to do with the disaster that happened at Live Aid. Everyone in the band could still play, but sometimes it comes down to people being on two separate creative pages that rip them apart. It may dishearten some fans, but you can’t blame Plant for wanting to change up his style.
