Maintaining the mystery of Led Zeppelin is more important than a half-arsed reunion
Robert Plant best described the magnitude of Led Zeppelin when he spoke about songs such as ‘Achilles Last Stand’ and ‘For Your Life’.
While discussing the band he has become famous for fronting and that fans of rock music all over the world adore, Plant was willing to acknowledge that some of the music they made was beyond the realm of possibility. “Fucking hell,” he said, putting it eloquently, “Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that.”
It’s true. Led Zeppelin is the greatest example of serendipity ever, because the fact of the matter is, if those four people’s lives didn’t intertwine in that way that they did, we wouldn’t have the greatest rock band of all time. Every single member was an expert in their chosen field, and every single member played a deeply important role within the band.
The band broke up in 1980, as there was already tension in the group, and a few members were questioning whether they wanted to stick around; however, it was the death of drummer John Bonham that finalised things. Robert Plant admitted, he was already confused about his feelings towards the band, and losing his dear friend was enough to have him step away for a while.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” said Plant, “I had to go and find out if I really want to do it. Did I want to do it, or did I just want to sit back there like a croupier at a gambling thing, and just kind of rake [the money] in. Or, did I want to actually continue this kind of gig of finding out where I’m going. I wanted to take all the trappings away, because I’d lost my best mate.”
Since then, the band have never formally reunited. There have been a couple of group performances, such as at Live Aid and at the O2, but there has never been a full-blown reunion tour. Led Zeppelin members aren’t necessarily on bad terms, either; they’re happy to be seen in public together, and there is no excess of bad blood between them. It leads many fans to think that maybe it’s time for the band to do an official reunion tour; however, during an interview with Mojo Magazine, Robert Plant shot down any rumours of a potential get-together.
While gearing up to release a new album with his band Saving Grace, Plant said he feels more compelled to play small acoustic shows in theatres rather than stadiums. He wants to continue performing something new rather than trying to rehash the Led Zeppelin image in a bid for a profitable reunion.
“The gigs are small enough so that if nobody wants to go, it’s not the end of the world,” he said, “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.”
While Plant ruling out a reunion might be disappointing to many Led Zeppelin fans, the fact that Plant isn’t open to a reunion is actually a good thing. The truth is that while some reunions can be triumphant, the majority of them don’t work out and result in poor shows done by musicians whose hearts aren’t in it. The gig gets by on the nostalgia element alone as opposed to the actual music itself. While this might be able to slide for bands like Guns N’ Roses, the idea of going to a Led Zeppelin performance and not getting something truly otherworldly would essentially ruin the band’s mystique.
The image of the rockstar doesn’t exist anymore. Social media has brought us closer than ever before to the artists that we listen to, meaning there is no mystery surrounding the artist. Some old rock legends still sit in that untouchable category, with a shroud of coolness and mystery covering them that makes them more than just musicians. In Led Zeppelin’s case, that mystery was often just as alluring as the music, as people would speculate over what the band were like in person, rumours would be shared about them selling their souls to the devil and drinking blood on their tour bus. All of this added to the band as a whole, as it made it so that people didn’t just buy into the music but were also buying into the story that surrounded the making of the music.
If Led Zeppelin were to reunite for a full tour, doing press and playing on stage without the same vigour they had decades earlier, their mysterious image would be shattered. While many of us would love the chance to see Zeppelin perform again, we need to ask if it would be worth it, as the shows would potentially ruin the beautiful mystery that makes up so much of our perception of the band.
Some things are better left untouched. Our appreciation of Zeppelin should manifest as seeing them perform on their solo endeavours and then appreciating the band as a moment in time. This allows us to keep the band’s image fresh in our minds, not just sounding great, but also being so elusive that their existence borders on the realm of fiction.
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