While members of the legendary rock group Rolling Stones are in their 70s, still touring and earning millions of dollars through ticket sales; Another band of the same generation, Led Zeppelin, is still in incomprehensible silence.
In 2007, the original members of Led Zeppelin, including Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant, along with drummer Jason Bonham (son of Led Zeppelin member John Bonham, who passed away in 1980), held a concert. reunion music at the O2 Arena in London.
The program has achieved both artistic and commercial success. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the concert set a record for ticket demand, when up to 20 million spectators wanted to come enjoy the show.
Not following the "reunion" trend
But since then, the band members have not held any other performances. The reason is largely because singer and song writer Robert Plant does not want to have any more activities with Led Zeppelin. The band remained silent, although concert organizers offered attractive figures, promising profits of up to $200 million, if they toured.
In fact, in 2008, Page and Jones collaborated with other singers to replace Robert Plant, a singer with a very technical singing style, in the hope of keeping Led Zeppelin's name. However, the cooperation still only stops at joint training, and has not yet reached the public. Meanwhile, Robert Plant is focusing on touring with country singer Alison Krauss and producer T-Bone Burnett. These are the artists with whom he collaborated to release the Grammy Award-winning album, Raising Sand (2007).
That's why both Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones later said: "Reuniting the band and touring is too difficult for us."
In the era of reunions and past times, the public has seen many bands reunite to tour. For example, the band Police earned more than $340 million with their 2007-2008 reunion tour. Eagles earned $250 million with a tour that lasted from 2008 to 2011.
Over the past decade, the number of fans cheering for the Pixies' performances has been 5-10 times larger than when they released their breakthrough albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now it's the return of Replacements. Members of this band, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, have signed a contract to perform three performances at Riot Fest in Toronto, Denver and Chicago, after they turned down "lucrative" invitations from the festivals. like Coachella and Lollapalooza over the years.
"Cries" money, likes challenges
Robert Plant was not excited to follow the new trend, because he had his own reasons. Over the decades, Plant has explained this in a somewhat "vulgar" way countless times: "Returning to perform with the band is like sleeping with your ex-wife without having sex."
In fact, deep down, Robert Plant wanted to participate in more exploratory projects and face new challenges. With that intention, it will be difficult for Plant to work with Led Zeppelin. Obviously Plant prefers to compose and perform new music rather than "digging up" the past.
And if Plant, Page and Jones create a new album, will fans want to hear them perform these songs, or will they just want to listen to old hits like Whole Lotta Love and Stairway To Heaven? If Led Zeppelin followed the audience's wishes, would Plant still be able to show off his "top" voice like in his heyday?
Robert Plant has his own doubts. He said that "there are few superstars of the 1970s who can still create a performance that is artistically worth mentioning, like in their peak period.
During this time, Plant still performed with his genre-mixing band called Sensational Space Shifters. So, how much do you get paid for each performance with the band? 125,000 USD. This number is only 1/10 of the amount earned from each show if he performed with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The problem was that Plant didn't need the money and so he didn't need to return to Led Zeppelin.