We Need to Talk About How Bad the Live Aid Led Zeppelin Reunion Was
It was, indeed, a "disaster" as guest drummer Phil Collins put it.
Led Zeppelin’s disastrous Live Aid set / Photograph by Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images
This story is part of our continuing coverage in honor of Live Aid Week in Philadelphia. Check back daily for more Live Aid fun.
Everybody was waiting for this moment. Led Zeppelin had broken up after drummer John Bonham died in 1980. And prior to that, Zep hadn’t played North America since 1977. That’s when their tour was cut short due to the death of singer Robert Plant’s son. Ironically, the last performance of that tour was supposed to be in Philadelphia, at JFK Stadium.
Fast-forward to Live Aid.
Plant had established a solid solo career by that point. And Genesis drummer and singer Phil Collins was a bona fide pop star. His solo hits “Against All Odds,” “Easy Lover,” and “Sussudio” were all over the place. Collins and Plant were tight, so when the subject of Live Aid came up, Plant called his pal Phil and suggested they do something, perhaps with Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. (Bassist John Paul Jones wasn’t mentioned.) Collins was receptive, later writing in his memoir, Not Dead Yet, that the whole thing was presented as very casual — just some mates jamming. But that wasn’t what this turned out to be.
“‘You, me and Jimmy maybe doing something together’ has become The Second Coming of History’s Greatest Rock Band,” wrote Collins. “This is a development of which I am blissfully ignorant. Robert hasn’t called, so I don’t know that John Paul Jones is coming too. And all of a sudden, it’s LED ZEPPELIN!”
But a full-blown Led Zeppelin reunion wasn’t complicated enough. It was decided that Collins would play some songs at Wembley on his own and with Sting before hopping the Concorde to play at JFK, which is exactly what happened. Plant wanted Collins to rehearse with him and Page, but Collins refused, citing a busy schedule. “I tell Robert, ‘You rehearse it, tell me the songs, and on the plane over … I’ll listen to the songs on my Walkman.”
Now would be a good time for you to head over to YouTube to watch this sad saga unfurl. I’ll wait. …
“It’s been a long time since I rock-and-rolled,” sang Plant in the opening lyrics to the first song of their set, 1971’s “Rock and Roll.” But it sounded like it had been a long time since Plant had tried out his vocal cords; his voice was shot.
Page appeared obliterated. “It’s immediately obvious that Jimmy is, shall we say, edgy,” wrote Collins. “It’s only later when I watch the clip that I see him dribbling onstage — actual saliva. And he can barely stand up as he’s playing.”
Collins is clearly unrehearsed, and the squeaky-clean drummer isn’t a good replacement for wild man Bonham. At times, he drops out completely, letting the other drummer (oh, did we not mention there were two drummers?!), who was rehearsed, play the parts, while at other times he played off-time while the other drummer was on-time, leading to complete breakdowns in rhythm. Which drummer were the other band members to follow?
After “Rock and Roll,” they fumbled through “Whole Lotta Love.” What should have happened next was that someone who loved these guys should have yanked them from the stage before they could similarly murder “Stairway to Heaven.” Alas, there was no merciful intervention, and they proceeded with the song, sounding like a really bad Led Zeppelin cover band at a Delco bar.
A reporter for MTV tried to interview the band backstage after their performance, but Plant clearly didn’t want to talk, while Page couldn’t utter an intelligible phrase. They knew what they had done: stomped all over Led Zeppelin’s legacy with one 22-minute set. “It was horrendous,” Plant would later admit to Rolling Stone. Page said all he could remember was being in a “total panic.” Collins called it a “disaster,” later summing it up as “the gig from hell.”
You can buy the official Live Aid four-DVD boxed set on Amazon for about $100. Noticeably absent? A single note of the Led Zeppelin reunion. Plant reportedly blocked its inclusion. And we cannot blame him.
