Re: O2...2 years gone...

[Wyatt Brake <wyattbrake@xxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Sauer already did a great job of explaining many of the points I
would have brought up, but I'll add a few things.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Steve Thomson <zeppelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[Wyatt wrote] I _really_ did not want these great remembrances of the
O2 to descend
>> into yet another excuse for Plant-bashing.
>
> Wyatt,
>
> You may not have wanted these great remembrances of the O2 to descend into
> yet another excuse for what you call Plant-bashing, but please understand
> that for many Led Zeppelin fans, this is a time of mixed feelings and
> remembrances both positive and negative. You may be entitled to be fed up
> with what you perceive as Plant bashing, but some of us also have a right to
> feel the way we do and to express it.

I never questioned anyone's rights - I was merely expressing a desire,
not a command or decree.  I realize that not everyone is satisfied
with the possibility of December 10, 2007 being the last time Page,
Plant, Jones, and Jason Bonham perform together.

> Your refresher of the facts doesn't quite match the story I recall
> hearing/reading in 2007. Ahmet's wife Mica wrote Robert Plant AND Jimmy Page
> and asked them to consider reforming Led Zeppelin to perform at the NYC
> tribute concert after Ahmet's death. Jimmy was game, but Plant suggested
> he'd rather do something in England. Jimmy agreed to this immediately but
> John did not. Plant took Jason to dinner and had a long heart-to-heart about
> all their personal issues. The time line on this is somewhat unclear (and
> doesn't really matter) but it seems that Jason was on board long before
> John. So, yes, Plant was definitely the catalyst for what became the O2
> show, but then again, one could argue that he was estranged from all three
> of the others, Jimmy for his having walked out  between tour legs in late
> 1998, John for having treated him like crap for years and Jason for a
> variety of reasons Jason recounted in 2007 interviews. So Plant had to mend
> some fences with these guys, which he did apparently.

Honestly Steve, when I wrote what I did, I was one hundred percent
certain of it being a well-documented fact - it was rock solid in my
memory.  But when I looked for documentation, the only thing I could
find right away was the Tight But Loose Issue 19, which I cited in the
email yesterday.  Then Steve Sauer came up with the interview of JPJ
by Ritchie Yorke for a Brisbane paper, which does not explicitly agree
with the TBL account, but Jones does imply that Robert was behind the
idea for them to do the show and do it in London.  When I googled
"Mica Ertegun" and "Led Zeppelin", I mostly received results pointing
to the September 12, 2007 press release, so I guess I'll have to look
for further confirmation.  I was under the impression it was
well-established, but perhaps it's not as widely acknowledged as I had
previously thought.

I would take issue with the characterization of Plant being
"estranged" from the three other guys.  From what I've read, Jimmy and
Robert had a cordial relationship in which they would occasionally
call each other.  No, they haven't traveled to Morocco or India
together recently, but it's not as though they were not speaking to
each other or avoiding contact.  You may recall an interview when
Plant was asked the last time he spoke to Page and Robert said that he
had called Jimmy recently but that Page had said something to the
effect of "oh no, I'm just getting in the car now - can't talk" or
whatever.  But that seems to imply that they talked frequently enough
that Page wasn't surprised at the call.  Obviously if there was any
animosity from Page toward Plant for not continuing the Walking into
Everywhere tour to Japan/Australia in 1999, it had been resolved by
the time Jimmy got on stage with Robert at Montreux on July 7, 2001
for six or seven songs.  Plant and Jones?  Sure - not like they're
going out for coffee everyday.  I think Robert and Jimmy share blame
for the treatment of John Paul in 1994-95.  Plant deserves more than
Page of course, but Jimmy wasn't exactly standing on principle on
behalf of Jones either.  But it seems like there was a reconciliation
among the three guys around the time of the DVD promotion in 2003 when
they all appeared to get along well enough.  I think many people
forget that they didn't all spend a lot of time together outside of
the band when they weren't on tour or working on an album.  Plant and
Bonham did, but after '75 did Jimmy and Robert ever go traveling
together as they had before?  I don't think so, and the Lemon probably
put his finger on the reason (the way things went after the accident).
 I think the consensus is the long layoff for the band after that
August 4, 1975 car accident is when Page got seriously into heroin,
and one could argue things were never again the same.  The grievances
with Jason seem like they may have been justified.  Jason was on a
pretty self-destructive path for a while, and I'd bet Plant tried to
set him straight a few times before his fairly recent sobriety.  The
recent revelation that Robert invited Jason down to jam when Pictures
at Eleven was being made hints at a more of a mentor-mentee or
uncle-nephew relationship between the two than we may have thought
existed.

> He might not have deliberately gone into the whole venture with the notion
> of promoting Raising Sand, but when the opportunity presented himself, he
> didn't hesitate to use the hype around the O2 and the subsequent "will
> they/won't they" speculation to help the cause. You may not like to read
> that or even think it, but seriously if Plant had no intention of doing
> anything beyond the O2 show with the reformed Led Zeppelin, he could have
> easily said so clearly. Those who defend him so passionately are quick to
> point to statements he kept making about "one night only" but those of us
> who are angry with him could point to an equal number of statements,
> appearances, actions, etc., that left a door open. You could easily say
> we're "clinging" to these, but we could equally say the same of you folks
> and your "one night only" mantras.

Uncut Magazine, May 2008 - Plant says, "I really enjoyed it.  And
hopefully, one day, we could do it again for another really, really
good reason.  Our profit is metaphysical."  He then goes on to talk
about his connection with Jimmy Page from 19 to 59.  You're right, he
definitely leaves the door open to performing with the guys again.
But seemingly not to a tour.  I'm not saying you're clinging to
anything, but some people may have read too much into his 'open door'
statements, thinking they were bound for a reunion tour after the O2.
I don't think he ever so much as hinted at a tour.  And you're right -
he talked about his album with Alison Krauss.  Would you expect him
not to mention it?

Again, that Uncut interview - Plant said, "I mean, we'd been planning
the release of Raising Sand for about a year, because Alison had to
finish her projects last summer, so the release was set for around
Thanksgiving.  And then, when we agreed that we [Zeppelin] play
together, there was definitely a feeling of 'what's going on here?
How come he's doing that, when we're rehearsing for Led Zep?'  Well, I
couldn't help that."

>> Let's just be thankful for what we have from this great band, and be
>> happy that they have such a fantastic legacy, which is due at least in
>> a small part to the classy way they decided to hang it up after John
>> Bonham's death.
>
> There's a big part of the problem, it's become pretty clear that "they"
> didn't hang it up. Robert Plant made the decision for them!

December 4, 1980 - yes, they all hung it up.  That's what I was talking about.

> Page, Jones and
> Bonham all made it clear in interviews that they were interesting in
> continuing. Mick Wall's book might be full of twisted facts, fabrications,
> whatever, but the picture it paints of the O2 Led Zeppelin  reunion as one
> firmly controlled by Plant in terms of set list, performance, etc., is most
> likely not far from the truth. As Jimmy said in an interview "I'm told we're
> only doing one show." IIRC, Jones said more or less the same thing. As for
> Jason, he's made it very clear for years now that anytime these guys decide
> to play, he's there for them. So obviously, someone was in control.

Never disputed that.  If you search the archives, you'll find that I
quoted liberally from Mick Wall's book and thought it was a real shame
that Plant supposedly vetoed Achilles and 'extended jamming'.

> As for Percy, well it's certainly his right to choose a different path, but
> he had at least some responsibility to the fans who've given him a life free
> from shoveling asphalt or crunching numbers to be clear, which many of us
> don't feel he was in the months following the O2 show. Instead of showing up
> at MSG in January 2008 and muttering "you never know what's around the
> corner" to a reporter and then proclaiming Kashmir as the song he would
> choose to bring the house down, he could have said, "Sorry, it was only one
> night and we have no plans for anything further." Instead of apparently
> telling people privately he wouldn't consider another LZ show unless the
> Arabs and Isreali's came together on Mt. Sinai, why not say so publicly and
> give people closure? The only plausible explanation is that speculation
> helps record sales. Either that or you don't see him as someone firmly in
> control of his faculties and instead is some burned out old hippie who
> really doesn't know what he's on about.

Whose record sales?  Robert Plant solo records, or Led Zeppelin
records?  The guy's worth 80 million pounds or whatever it is - I
don't think he was too concerned about fueling speculation to help
record sales.  I don't agree that Plant was under any obligation to
bat down every rumor of a Led Zeppelin tour, since if he was
responsible for that, I don't know that he would ever have time for
anything else.  When they decided to do a show, they made an
announcement.  There was a press conference.  There was a system for
ticket balloting.  It wasn't a secret gig where they got together and
didn't tell anyone.  If there was going to be a tour, I don't think it
would be hidden.  It would be publicized, just like the decision to
play the O2 for Ahmet was publicized.  I don't think there was
anything wrong with replying "Kashmir" to the question, nor do I think
that was a wink wink, nudge nudge to everyone to interpret that
Zeppelin would be starting a tour to coincide with the next equinox.
I hadn't heard the Mount Sinai remark before; I think that's kind of
funny.

> The bottom line for me is that the O2 show showed us Led Zeppelin fans that
> the potential was there for this band to go on. Those of us who love this
> band saw that, while they weren't the same without Bonzo, they were still
> infinitely more interesting than, to borrow Plant's 1975 statement "whoever
> it is that's number two." We saw the name "Led Zeppelin" alive and well on a
> web site, on billboards, on ticket stubs,  and most importantly live
> onstage. A colleague who visited London a couple of weeks before the show
> said that everywhere he went, Led Zeppelin was in the air, in conversations.
> Moreover, we saw all four in interviews talking about Led Zeppelin in the
> present tense. Then we saw one of the four spend months beating around the
> bush before finally hanging it up for all four.
>
> As a fan of Led Zeppelin, for this I will probably always resent Robert
> Plant to some extent. I can get excited about his upcoming project with
> Lanois since it has potential to produce truly fine results, but that
> doesn't erase what I feel he did to millions of loyal fans around the world
> and to the band I love. I will always wonder what that band at the O2 two
> years ago would have done had they been allowed to continue. You were there,
> did you not feel the same?

I don't know if _I_ am even excited about the Daniel Lanois thing -
I'd rather see a return to Strange Sensation (with your favorite
guitarist, Steve - Justin Adams!  Haha...).  I don't think he "did"
anything to millions of loyal fans other than give them 12 years of
his life and a great final send-off at the O2 in '07.  I don't think
he's done anything to fans for which an apology is necessary - far
from it.  Like I said in a recent off-list email, I feel like we're
fortunate that we got any Zeppelin at all after Karac's death.  I
don't think Plant owes anyone anything after enduring something like
that.

I have some mixed feelings about that last gig as I think I've
confessed before here on FBO, and it would take longer than the time I
have tonight to give a full and honest answer.  The short answer is
sure, I was curious.  I would have loved for them to go right into the
studio and see if they could produce an album worthy of the name Led
Zeppelin.  I would have much preferred they do that as a first step
before any tour, because to me a tour would have been exactly what
Plant justifiably sought to avoid.

But anyway, I don't resent anyone because I feel like they did
themselves justice in London that night.  There were some rough spots,
some mistakes, but some real magic as well, just like a Zep show
during their prime.  I could see merit in arguments both for
continuing and also for making it the last one.  There was a lot that
was wrong with that night too (the amount of people there who were not
what most of us would consider real fans).  We were in line for five
or six hours next to two guys from Alberta who were almost indifferent
to Led Zeppelin, but were there because it was a major event.  For all
the warmth there was, there was also a lot of coldness in the crowd
from people who were there because it was a place to be seen or a
place to tell everyone you went.  Not the band's fault of course -
just the nature of the times in which we live.

If there's anyone who should really be angry, it's me for having been
born in 1981 and missing the '70s entirely, damn it!

I appreciate the challenging discussion, Steve.  Thanks to FBO, I'm
able to have such 'talks' with real Zeppelin fans I respect, but with
whom I do not always agree.

-Wyatt