Why No Led Zeppelin Reunion?
Plant often gets snippy when journalists ask him about another tour as Zeppelin. It's been estimated that a reunion could bring in over a billion dollars! Plant goes on about how he doesn’t want to be a ‘jukebox’ and that stadium rock on this level is overly commercialized soul-robbing rubbish, etc.
Sure, he's got plenty of money and is in a much better position financially than many of the old bands from the 70's and 80's replenishing their bank accounts with nostalgia tours. However, these are not the real reasons he doesn't want to tour as Zeppelin again. And touring specifically as Zeppelin is a very important detail. Why?
There is a telling clue here and it’s related to one of the (many) sputtering almost-reunions the band had. Zeppelin got back together for the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert in Philadelphia. There wasn’t much time to rehearse and it was a decidedly poor performance but Plant said he was drunk on it all and missed the rush of singing in front of a huge audience. It was such a feeling that they soon began rehearsing again but it all started falling apart after a couple of weeks as tension among them grew and they began to get on each other’s nerves.
Then it happened. Their stand-in drummer Tony Thompson (formerly of the band Chic) was involved in a minor car accident while being driven home from the pub one night. Apparently, this was seen as an omen by Plant. Remember of course that his 1975 car crash was the unofficial inception point of the Led Zeppelin Curse.
After Thompson’s fender-bender Plant began to question the whole endeavor saying that nobody wanted to hear that old stuff again, etc. However, this completely contradicted the general consensus that, in fact, everyone wanted to see Zeppelin get back together. That particular failed reunion attempt is key because Plant’s...
