Photo: Tom Oldham
Speaking exclusively in the new issue of MOJO – on sale now – Robert Plant has discussed why there won’t be another Led Zeppelin reunion following the band’s one-off show at London’s O2 Arena in 2007.
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Following the death of John Bonham in 1980, Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page performed a largely underwhelming set as Led Zeppelin at the US leg of Live Aid in 1985; but reunited again in the 90s as Page & Plant, releasing two albums, 1994’s No Quarter, and Walking Into Clarksdale in 1998.
With Bonham’s son Jason taking his dad’s place on the drum stool, Page, Plant and bassist John Paul Jones performed a show-stopping set at 2007’s Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert, held to honour their former Atlantic Records label boss, which was later released as the Celebration Day concert album and DVD.
Yet while both fans and his surviving bandmates were keen to play more Zeppelin shows, Plant wanted to focus instead on his solo career and went on to scoop up a raft of Grammys in 2009 for his collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, Raising Sand.
“There were other things that [Plant] wanted to do so he did them. He wasn’t keen to do Zeppelin so we had to respect that,” Page told MOJO’s Phil Alexander in 2012.
“Jason, John Paul Jones and I were playing afterwards then, sure, we were willing to go beyond the element of the O2. But we couldn’t do anything that was a Led Zeppelin reunion unless the singer was there. Quite clearly, we’re there, but he’s not so what’s the point of playing games with it?”
“The responsibility the four of us had that night, was a responsibility to ourselves, to get it right, with enough feeling, because we hadn’t visited it as a way of being for such a long, long time,” Plant told MOJO in 2023, looking back to the 2007 show at the O2. “It was ‘Goodbye Ahmet,’ and it was, ‘Goodbye, everything, it’s been fantastic!’ So, it worked, and it was good, and that was it.”
While they didn’t perform again, Page, John Paul Jones and a visibly moved Plant appeared together in 2012 to receive the Kennedy Centre honours from President Obama.
Instead, Plant has continued to follow his own career path. He’s released three solo albums since Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion show, another with Krauss (2021’s Raise The Roof), and appears on Paul Weller’s recent covers album, Find El Dorado.
On September 26, Plant will release a new album, recorded with his new band Saving Grace, made up of musician friends from across his native Midlands, with whom he’s been playing live.
“For me, because I’ve been from a very questionable Live Aid to the O2, to Obama and the White House and all those things, I was beatified. I felt the tug of doing this – Saving Grace needed just to move on up in glory, as Mavis [Staples] would say. We’ve got to be very careful now that we make sure it stays closer to Bert Jansch than Axl Rose,” Plant tells MOJO’s Keith Cameron in the new issue of MOJO, on sale now.
“The gigs are small enough so that if nobody wants to go, it’s not the end of the world. And so, by having that laissez-faire, easy-going, whatever it’s called – suicidal! – attitude, instead of doing the football stadium with some old mates, there it was: we were free. We could mess about.”
“Doing the football stadium with some old mates” could well apply to fellow Black Country rock veterans Black Sabbath’s farewell show, a celebration that featured a who’s who of heavy rock and metal icons which took place at Aston Villa’s ground just weeks before Ozzy Osbourne passed away. A gig that, as Plant reveals in the interview, he declined an invitation from Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi to attend.
“I said, Tony, I’d love to come, but I can’t come,” recalls Plant. “I just can’t. I’m not saying that I’d rather hang out with Peter Gabriel or Youssou N’Dour, but I don’t know anything about what’s going on in that world now, at all. I don’t decry it, I’ve got nothing against it. It’s just I found these other places that are so rich.”
While Saving Grace perform Zeppelin numbers The Rain Song, Friends and Four Sticks as part of their set, Plant has resolutely resisted the urge to kick back and play his former band’s hits like so many of his contemporaries do.
“What were the hits? How can they be related to now, where do they fit? They fit as a sort of memoir…” he reasons. “When people say that I don’t like Stairway To Heaven, I just don’t like the idea of it. These iconic things – they’re just what they are. But you know, most people have missed some of the best Zeppelin stuff. For Your Life, on Presence. Achilles Last Stand! Fucking hell. Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that,” he continues.
“Really, they were pulling so much stuff out of the unknown, Bonham and Jones together on For Your Life. It’s just insane. And Jimmy, just… (exhales). I suppose, to do it for the sake of it was never what Zeppelin was about. And the tribute to Ahmet, it came through. You know, without John, but it came through. It was a good study. The smell of fear on that stage was quite remarkable. Because we’ve been shambolic at times, and great other times. That’s how it should be if you’re taking risks like that.”
“SO MANY ADVENTURES, SO MANY TALES…”
Get the latest issue of MOJO to read the interview in full and to get our exclusive, bespoke CD of gems and curios from across Plant’s solo career hand-selected by Robert Plant himself. More info and to order a copy HERE!
