Will Led Zeppelin ever reunite?
If we were to hold a poll with music fans about which band they’d love most to see reunite, I’d wager the slim funds in my bank account that many would choose Led Zeppelin. Although the rock pioneers split up in 1980 following the abrupt, tragic death of drummer John Bonham, and the surviving members had a brief handful of reunions since, their most concerted and final return occurred at The Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert on December 10th, 2007.
While it might seem like that resounding, full-bodied return was only yesterday, it’s closer to 20 years ago than anything else, a fact that will probably make most readers feel old. Although it was that long ago, it remains one of the finest reunions of a world-famous band in history and confirmed what fans had always known whenever Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had fleetingly gotten back together before: they still had it.
This stellar final reunion emerged after the band agreed to perform a one-off set as the headline act at the momentous Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert. The late Ertegün was the co-founder and President of Atlantic Records and was an instrumental figure in Led Zeppelin getting off the ground and going global, who always supported them through thick and thin. It wasn’t just the quartet that Ertegün positively impacted either; he was responsible for the careers of many other cultural titans.
Given that The Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert had many famous figures attached to it, including Stevie Nicks, CSNY, Phil Collins and a headliner of Led Zeppelin, fans flocked to get tickets for this historic moment. There was a tangible excitement around the evening before Led Zeppelin signed on, and after they did, things reached a fever pitch. It was similar to what occurred when Oasis announced their reunion in 2024.
While some might have expressed misgivings about the band’s abilities, with the surviving members either in their early 1960s or approaching them and backed by a drummer of Bonham’s son, Jason, their fears were instantly allayed as soon as the introductory notes rang out of their first song, ‘Good Times Bad Times’. From the start of their performance to the end, the roof came crashing down, with nearly 20,000 fans at London’s O2 Arena losing their minds as Led Zeppelin penned the final chapter of their story in front of their very eyes.
So, will Led Zeppelin ever reunite?
Given that the show was such a resounding success, there were calls for Led Zeppelin to get back together in a more permanent way. However, frontman Plant didn’t want it, and it looked for a time that Page, Jones and Bonham would find a new singer, but it never happened. It seems that they felt they couldn’t do it without Plant, even if it was always Page’s band at its core. It also appears that Led Zeppelin will never reunite, given the frontman has firmly knocked back any suggestion of it in the years since.
“I’ve gone so far somewhere else that I almost can’t relate to it,” he told Rolling Stone in 2011. “It’s a bit of a pain in the pisser, to be honest. Who cares? I know people care, but think about it from my angle – soon, I’m going to need help crossing the street.”
“You can’t ever really go back,” he then reiterated once more in 2017. “It’s tough enough repeating yourself with something that’s a year old, never mind 49 years old. I’ve got to keep moving.”
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