Branson was reportedly also ready to supply the group with their own private jet for the tour. The mogul was prepared to take one of his airline’s planes and rebrand it “The Starship”. The contract also had an extension option to add 45 more shows in additional venues should the band agree. The other two original members of the group apparently signed on immediately, and Jason Bonham, the son of late drummer John Bonham, was set to step in for his father. Plant apparently met with concert promoters to discuss the deal, and during the meeting actually ripped the contract in two, ending any chance of a regrouping. As the story goes, following Led Zeppelin’s well-received one-show reunion at London’s 02 Arena in 2007 Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were ready to bring the show on the road. Robert Plant demurred leading his former band mates to search out another lead singer, though they wisely never went through with the Plant-less Zeppelin. In a feature on Plant that aired last night on the Australian version of 60 Minutes, Plant tells reporter Tara Brown that not only should the blame for the lack of a Zeppelin tour not be laid at his feet, but that he has “nothing to do in 2014,” inferring that he’d be open to another reunion next year. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...6lQubvoTTS7oDQ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...pLgIqagM9irgHA
Who knows why he wouldn't want to do a tour. If they did get back together for a reunion tour, I would imagine that the shows would be at stadiums, and the tickets would be outrageously expensive. I doubt that they would sound very good. They haven't played together in years.
I wonder how that works. If a million people see the concert at $800 a ticket, that only pays Plant's share? In any case it looks like serious money. Of course a billion doesn't buy what it used to, so . . . I wonder how many top paid athletes you could get for $800 mil. I think this exceeds the GNP of about half the countries in the world. Kinda funny that they want to promote the classic sound now that Plant has a hit on the contemporary music circuit. Also I saw this documentary on the band earlier this year which I found interesting. It made me want to watch this concert. That classic sound goes through a lot of interpretation.
Imagine what a twenty-city international tour would do. Fifty thousand a show would be the absolute minimum, and those would be American venues. In Europe, they can pull over a hundred thousand. Twenty cities with potential for around three million in ticket sales, plus international pay per-view revenues, plus product sales perhaps imitating the old Pearl Jam bit where they call out for bootlegs and then release the best for sale. A tour would be a massive cash cow. There are plenty of reasons why Plant would say no. He's not up to it, perhaps. He knows the limitations of age. Or maybe the thought just strikes him as absurd. To wit, people still, to this day, speculate about why Kurt Cobain killed himself. Drugs. The wife. The fame. And actually, that latter is important, because a rarely observed fact, in my opinion, has much greater significance than such discussions of the Nirvana frontman's suicide generally grant it. Quite simply, Bleach, the first Lp, was recorded for six hundred dollars. The band was signed to DGC, apparently as a requirement of signing Sonic Youth; the legend goes that Thurston Moore was ready to sign onto the label, and advised, "You have to get this other band, because they're going to destroy us." The company, apparently, took him seriously. So goes the legend. Nevermind, the world-changing second Lp from the band, and DGC debut, was recorded on what I've heard to be about a fifty-thousand dollar front. By the sound of it, they spent about two grand on the album and the rest on drugs. That, too, is a matter of legend, though. Enter Steve Albini. The former Big Black frontman is nearly a deity in some sectors of post-punk popular music. He also loathes the music industry, and once published, in defense of online file trading, a discussion of what happens to a band's half-million dollars when they're picked up in a major-label feeding frenzy. Essentially, you can have a gold album, chart the singles, tour two hundred shows in a year, and the second album will be delayed because you still owe the label fifty thousand dollars. Only the Metallicas and Red Hot Chili Peppers of the pop industry actually succeed this way, rising above the corporate racket. Cobain decided it was time for Albini to get paid. Songs About Fucking was just one of those albums, you know? Big Black inspired the next generation of musicians that took over the world. In Utero, Nirvana's third and final Lp, had no producer. Rather, they hired Steve Albini to engineer the album. Word is he was paid three million. Cash. Up front. To be the engineer. Best gig ever, quite honestly. But there is something about the scale of the money—from six hundred to fifty grand to three million for an engineer—that, in the relevant sensibilities of the day, seemed downright offensive. That is, one could certainly be happy to be the guy who finally paid Steve Albini, and had Cobain not killed himself he probably would have done something like it again, most likely hiring Greg Sage (The Wipers) for something or another on the fourth album. That something about the scale of money, though; it is impossible that this did not bother Cobain. Whether or not it contributed to his self-inflicted demise is its own question. To the other, Robert Plant isn't about to off himself. Rather, it's just that I can see a very likely route to an outcome that finds that much money beyond simply distasteful, leaning more toward morally offensive.
ABBA did the same thing about 15 years ago. As I heard it, they were offered one billion dollars for a single reunion performance, and they turned it down. I suspect it was Anni-Frid Lyngstad who turned it down, since she is now a German countess (by marriage) and has to live up to the rules of decorum for royalty. ABBA: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Anni-Frid actually had a modest solo career as "Frida" after the ABBA breakup. Her song "Something's Going On" was in rotation on MTV for several months
And then there is the comfort of knowing I'm not the only person in the world who remembers that song and bit of trivia.
I have the album on vinyl. It's actually pretty good. Her solo voice is very nice and so is the songwriting. Page and Plant have performed together, with other musicians taking up the slack. So I'm not clear on why they'd be reluctant to do it again. I suppose it would feel a little awkward--or even sad--to call the new band "Led Zeppelin." But hell, there are bands out there in which all of the original members are dead or retired, such as the Coasters. The surviving members of the Doors were encouraged to do a reunion tour, with Ian Astbury of The Cult on vocals--a gig he had been dreaming of since childhood. But drummer John Dinsmore refused to participate and also refused to approve the use of the band's name. They went out on tour anyway, with a pickup drummer and the lame name "The Doors of the 21st Century." Unfortunately, without the original name they didn't have the draw to perform in arenas and were limited to smaller venues. I saw them in a hall that only holds about 1,000 people. Needless to say, it was a great show, one of the most memorable in my life. I don't think anyone would mistake Astbury for Morrison, but we could all see Jim peeking in from a dark corner, tapping his foot and saying, "Yeah, this guy's got it!"
