Damian Jones of NME reports:
On September 30th, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page sated that he ruled out any chance of the band playing together ever again.
Page was hosting a playback of his remastered versions of Houses Of The Holy and Led Zeppelin IV at Olympic Studios in London when he confirmed the news.
Asked directly by NME if remastering the albums made him want to reform the band again, he said, “I don’t think it looks as though that’s a possibility or on the cards, so there’s not much more I can say about that. I’m not going to give a detail-by-detail account of what one person says or another person says. All I can say is it doesn’t look likely, does it?”
When pressed on whether this was down to frontman Robert Plant, Page added, “I’ve just said it doesn’t look very likely.”
His comments come after Plant recently said that he felt “disappointed and baffled” after Page dropped repeated hints about wanting to play with the band again. The guitarist also said that he was “fed up” with his bandmate for delaying his plans. Led Zeppelin last played together in 2007 for a one-off tribute to Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun at London’s O2 Arena.
But Page did today confirm that he is likely to form his own band and play live material right across his whole career, including his Zeppelin work, in the near future.
He told the Q&A session, “If I was to play again it would be with musicians that would be… some of the names might be new to you. I haven’t put them together yet but I’m going to do that next year. If I went out to play, I would play material that spanned everything from my recording career right back to my very, very early days with The Yardbirds. There would certainly be some new material in there as well.”
Page added, “I love playing live, I really do. Live concerts are always an interesting challenge because it means you can always change things as you’re playing every night. You can make it even more of an adventure. I would play all of the things I’m known to play – instrumental versions of Dazed And Confused etcetera, etcetera…”
The playback saw a selection of remastered tracks from the latest reissues aired in a theater against a backdrop of old tour posters and photos of Led Zeppelin.
It followed a reissue campaign earlier this year of the band’s first three albums. Various formats of ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ and ‘Houses Of The Holy’ will be released on October 28th.
source: nme.com
72 Responses
Jimmy is a great guitar player. And he needs a band to play in.
We’d be saying the same thing about Keith Richards if he didn’t have Mick and the stones to fall back on.
Yeah but the Expensive Winos albums Keith did were good, especially the first one. As far as Zep Clarence and Mike are dead on. Check out some Zeppelin bootlegs from 1969-72 and you will realize why not doing a reunion is the smart move. Recommended ones are Fillmore West 69, Montreaux 70, Berkeley 71, and for pure balls out Zep any L.A. 72 or Germany March 16, 1973
Why tour? They can make millions off these tired old retreaded retreads. How many more times do we need a newly enhanced Led Zep album?
It’d be cool if Jimmy just did a solo album with guest artists. He doesn’t need a “band”, he’s Jimmy Page! There’s lots of vocalists and musicians that I would love to see him work with. I’d love to see him reunite with Paul Rodgers. I’d love to see he and Glenn Hughes write and perform a song with Glenn singing and playing bass. I’d love to see him go toe to toe in a guitar showdown with Joe Bonamassa. I’d love to see him jam with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. I’d love to hear him play with the great Leslie West. I want him to rock out with Zakk Wylde and Slash on the same song. And I think it’d be extremely cool if Rob Halford would sing over a sprawling, epic song, similar to Kashmir or The Song Remains The Same. The possibilities are endless.
if they could find someone with Paul Rodger’s hair, Jimmy’s teeth, and John Paul’s charisma, they’d have the perfect singer — can’t wait for the remastered LPs — he should keep putting these out every 3 months