by Hugh Jones
(Excerpted from Issue #30, which contains related articles on Zep's 1971 & 1972 Japanese tours, a discography including 'The History Of Japanese Bootlegs', a look at collectible Japanese magazines and more)
Twenty two years and one month-almost to the day- after they last played in Japan, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant returned for one of the more unusual events in their career together.
As part of a fall '94 promotional tour for the "Unledded" MTV special and their No Quarter album that took them to New York, Australia and Japan, Robert and Jimmy made an appearance on a news magazine-type show in Tokyo on November 10.
Their ten-minute appearance began with an interview, conducted through an interpreter, discussing their age (eliciting many smiles and laughter as Robert professes to be 36 and Jimmy says, "yesterday he said he was 26!") and their new collaboration. Midway through the interview segment, the duo are shown sitting on stools in a large, modern-looking room with the Tokyo skyline showing through windows in the background. Jimmy holds a black Ovation acoustic and amazingly, they perform an abbreviated and surprisingly heartfelt rendition of "Stairway To Heaven." Considering Robert's loudly voiced objections to performing the song, it's an unusual choice indeed, and one of the most striking examples of Japan's "special" status in Page and Plant's eyes.
Over a year later in February '96, during the home stretch of their mammoth "No Quarter" tour, the Page/Plant band returned to Japan for ten shows, including a six-night stand at Tokyo's Budokan Hall and stops in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Arriving a few days prior to opening night, both Page and Plant paid visits to Tokyo's bootleg shops, reportedly carrying out armloads of discs in exchange for photos and autographs for the shopkeepers and the few lucky fans in attendance.
During rehearsals the band fooled around with an Elvis medley and worked on a lengthy version of "Tea For One," and sure enough, just as in Zeppelin's 1971 visit, they pulled out all the stops once the shows got underway, trying out previously unplayed material and changing the setlists almost every night.
With Plant's voice a bit rough on opening night, the setlist was fairly standard, however the second show saw some drastic changes in song order as they opened with "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" for the first time. Night three at the Budokan brought the first stunning new additions-"The Rain Song," played acoustically with the orchestra backing (as in the "Unledded" show but nowhere else on the tour)-and "Tea For One" in its first-ever live airing, also with orchestra. "Tea For One" broke down at the beginning and had to be restarted, prompting Plant to say, "This is the rehearsal for the bootleg."
The following night the show opened with "The Rain Song" and "Tea For One" was played again in a dramatic, flawless delivery. The rest of the Budokan stand featured more changes and the re-introduction of "That's The Way," "Custard Pie" and "What Is & What Should Never Be" on various nights-all songs that were played only sporadically during the twelve months of touring prior.
The first of two shows in Osaka found "Wonderful One" back in the set, and most unusually the only Page/Plant performance of "Ten Years Gone" ever-perhaps the highlight of the whole tour-beautifully rendered with the help of the orchestra.
The big surprises let up for the remaining three dates of the tour, though the order continued to change (in Nagoya they opened with "Heartbreaker") and "Celebration Day" found its way back into the set. Taken as a whole the '96 Japanese visit was undoubtedly the most unusual and exciting segment of the entire tour. Moving on to Australia for their last five dates the setlists returned to the same basic framework as before-no sign of "Tea For One," "The Rain Song" or "Ten Years Gone" anywhere in sight. There's just something about Japan. . .
These dates are well documented by both audio and video bootlegs, most from excellent quality audience DATs. Not just one but two labels opted to release 20-disc box sets containing all ten shows, both extremely pricey and of course hard to find now. Other less grandiose releases are noted below.
It remains to be seen what Page & Plant have in store for Japan on the current tour, but one can only hope that they'll stay true to form and offer up some surprises. May we humbly suggest "Blue Train"? At the moment Japanese dates are tentatively set for February 1999.
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