Re: Led Zep to get together for the 56th time
Date: June 26, 2007 21:28
I have two things to offer on this topic.
1. I don't know how 100% totally accurate this information truly is, but a friend of mine worked for Atlantic records during the Page/Plant reunion era, and he maintains that Page hurt his back late in the last Page/Plant tours, and then aggravated it again when he was on tour with the Black Crowes (which you may remember news reports said the reason the tour dates were cancelled was because of his back). And that basically the unofficial word around the hallways at Atlantic was that Page was pretty much done, as far as live touring is concerned. That the gist of it was that he would probably love to play with those guys, get together with Plant and Jones musically somehow and do something, but he really does not want to do a big long arduous tour going all over the place.
Which, if you look at Page's history since cancelling that Black Crowes tour in 2000, Page has pretty much only done the kind of "jump up and play" gigs that are guest appearances, one-offs, sitting in, short five-song sets, etc. And he does a lot of showing up at awards shows in a tuxedo, a lot of charity work, and of course he's been going back through the Zeppelin live tapes catalog releasing the DVDs and "How The West Was Won" in the years since 2000. But has he gone out and done any massive two-year-long, 250-date, 16-country tours playing two hours onstage a night, since he hurt his back? NO. It kinda makes sense.
2. In more reliable and recent information, I know someone who ran into Plant in New Orleans earlier this year. Basically spotted him bopping around shops in the French Quarter, and for a few minutes was able to ask questions and quiz him about what was going on. And Plant said that basically, he has this really young girlfriend now, who is in her 20s, and she wasn't even alive when Zeppelin were at their biggest. And Plant was joking about how she watched some DVDs with him one night and how she didn't like Zeppelin's music, it was too dark, it was a noisy racket, etc etc. So in one sense, it looks like he doesn't really want to go back there, and it shows in a lot of the interviews he's done, where he just totally slags off the idea of going back and doing the Zeppelin thing like it was 1975 again. And as far as this year goes, he's got new albums coming out and tours in the works and doesn't show any sign of being interested in going out and doing a Zeppelin oldies tour.