The frontman Robert Plant always dreamed of becoming: “It was remarkable”
Endlessly parodied and enduringly iconic, Robert Plant is the archetypal rock and roll frontman.
During the heyday of Led Zeppelin’s hard rock empire, Plant made the characters of This Is Spinal Tap look positively banal in comparison, carving out the defining image of rock hedonism in the process. Still, the grass is always greener.
Looking back, the 1970s were a veritable golden age for this new generation of rock stars, ushered in largely by the efforts of Robert Plant, but with a deluge of similarly flamboyant, chaotic, and eccentric figures following closely behind. After all, that era, in the wake of the pop revolution that was the 1960s, saw great advances in the musical landscape that meant bands were able to rake in a lot more revenue.
Led Zeppelin were, for instance, among the first groups to perform at colossal arenas like Earls Court or fly from gig to gig on their own private jet. Inevitably, that level of stardom, money, sex, and drugs is capable of altering the life and personality of a bloke from West Bromwich forevermore. So, drugs were consumed in excess, hotel rooms were destroyed, and Plant developed the kind of rockstar god complex that has been parodied on a multitude of occasions.
It is difficult to imagine that force of nature frontman ever looking upon another performer with a sense of envy, particularly during those 1970s golden years. Still, there were those who managed to hold their own when it came to their own hedonistic eccentricities, one such figure being Rod Stewart. Like Plant, Stewart epitomised the rockstar image of the early 1970s, and even the Led Zeppelin frontman was in awe of ‘Rod the Mod’ and his famous feathered shag hairdo.
“We saw Rod Stewart in the reception,” Plant once recalled in an interview, harking back to a time in which Led Zeppelin crossed paths with Stewart while out on the road. Immediately, Plant was taken aback by the appearance of the Faces’ frontman.
“He was like a tanned Adonis with his see-through shirt and hairs sticking up about maybe 18 inches off the top of his head,” he shared. “It was remarkable.”
Even more remarkably, Zeppelin vocalised their envy of Stewart in that very moment. “Bonham said to me: ‘Do you think we’ll ever be like that?’” Plant added. “I’m still waiting for that day.”
Whether it was simply the look of Rod Stewart that Plant was hoping to recapture at some point, or the entire package of the performer, his open adoration for the ‘Maggie May’ singer speaks to the unbridled power of Rod Stewart during the early 1970s.
Despite being a relative newcomer to the world of rock and roll success, having struggled along through the 1960s as a relative unknown, Stewart seemed to command the airwaves with effortless grace and a fitting degree of rock and roll chaos.
In the long run, it is fair to say that Plant’s recorded material has continued to triumph over Stewart’s tenfold. In terms of performance, though, Rod Stewart is still going to this very day – albeit in a more geriatric form – thus cementing his reputation among the most iconic rock and roll performers Britain has ever produced. What’s more, there still aren’t many people who can pull of his hairdo.
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