A tipster who was at last night’s Cult show in Los Angeles writes in with the latest example of Ian Astbury fanning the “dude, we are so opening for Led Zeppelin next summer” flames: “at last night’s show at the Wiltern in L.A., the singer, between songs, sang ‘it’s been a long time since I rock… More »
Bonnaroo promotion company Superfly attempted to halt the weekend-long frenzy over the possibility of Led Zeppelin and Metallica possibly headlining next year’s festival today, via a statement to Billboard:
After surviving Jimmy Page’s finger scare and slogging through months of rumors about a full Led Zeppelin reunion tour or Robert Plant gyrating his way through the international summer festival circuit or Page and Plant playing an acoustic show at a Dress Barn in Paducah, the band has now been “confirmed” to play its first American gig in eons, at a venue that you might never have expected. This e-mail was sent to Bob Lefsetz, proprietor of The Lefsetz Letter, on Friday, and he happily shared it with his userbase:
This news may ruin Ian Astbury’s day, but Robert Plant has told Rolling Stone that he’ll be spending the first chunk of next year on the road… with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, as the two team up to promote their album Raising Sand. Said tour may be a good way for Plant and Co., to save face, since according to those rumormongers over at The Sun, the version of Led Zeppelin that’s currently in rehearsals is not letting its songs remain the same, thanks to Plant apparently experiencing the “voice change” part of puberty sometime in his mid-40s.
Did The Cult’s Ian Astbury get hopped up on goofballs and spill the beans about his band opening up for Led Zeppelin’s long-rumored, probably inevitable reunion tour next year while on stage in Cincinnati? If this account of Saturday night’s Cult show at Bogart’s nightclub is true, then the answer is yes! And also, he is in a lot of trouble.
So now everyone’s trying to out-guess each other as to which of the international summer festivals the reformed Led Zeppelin will be hitting up next year. Perhaps they’ll decide to play whatever sticky, smelly three-ring circus takes up residence in my home state next summer? Or perhaps one of its well-established U.K. equivalents? Perhaps!
Jimmy Page is quoted in the forthcoming issue of Guitar World, re the possibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion, “It’s a bit silly not to because there is such massive demand … It’s a bit selfish to do just one show. If that’s it, we probably shouldn’t have taken the genie out of the bottle.” More »
This week, The New Republic somehow sold enough ad space to let a bit of wankery about the Led Zeppelin reunion by music writer David Browne into its pages. You can probably guess what the piece’s “angle” is from its subhead–“Explaining Led Zeppelin’s enduring hold on our collective conscious”–but here’s a rundown: OMG LED ZEP REUNION, by the way the White Stripes canceled their tour, Led Zep is “ageless” and so is Nick Drake, “‘The Crunge’ could almost be a rap boast,” and hey, those kids today really do seem to like the Arcade Fire. (Also: Radiohead!) And then there’s the closing graf, which tries to tie together the legends of Led Zeppelin and the White Stripes in a horrifically clumsy way:
“Fans from around the world” are bitching and moaning to the NME about how Jimmy Page’s finger ouchie has “plunged [them] into travel chaos.” Sure, “fans from around the world” probably translates to “a couple of irate yanks with entitlement issues,” but at least the Brit tabloid is doing its part to keep ugly American stereotypes alive.
