Led Zeppelin to appear on Letterman on Monday (12/3)

Whoa…

Story here.

It’s to promote their new concert documentary, “Celebration Day.”

Thanks for that. Tivo is all set.

Who’s playing drums? Jason Bonham, or someone else?

John Bonham hologram

Yeah, Jason is on drums, he does an outstanding job. Led Zep fans will definitely want to check out Celebration Day. I saw it on the big screen and it was really well done.

Are they going to perform or just sit on the couch and pimp the film? The article only says that they’ll “appear” on the show.

My question, too.

Led Zepplin are in Washington DC (where the Letterman show will be taped) for the Kennedy Awards, so I doubt they will even have their musical instruments, let alone perform.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Letterman does his best to convince them to do one quick number - after all, it was Letterman who got Sonny and Cher to sing I Got You Babe that was totally unrehearsed and Cher later said she just got caught up in the moment and decided to sing it there after Letterman put them on the spot.

We can hope they might do a song…

All it takes for Cher to spontaneously sing “I got you Babe” is to hand her the microphone.
For Zepplin to do anything, you’re gonna need some serious equipment

…as if they might not have it already on set, “just in case”?

Still - I doubt they would want to perform at the last minute. They might agree in advance to do one song - but my bet is they don’t. They will just show a clip or two from the movie.

Just wanted to say thanks for the heads-up!

And Zeppelin fans should do themselves a favor and pick up Celebration Day; it really is a damn fine performance.

The listings for Moday’s episode list Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones (not “Led Zeppelin”), and also list a musical performance from Paloma Faith, so chances are we won’t see them perform.

I believe Page and Plant are on record as saying that LZ will never perform again.

Thanks so much for pointing that out. I just watched it and got a little misty-eyed…

On the off chance that a Jimmy Page/Black Crowes tour ever happens again, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Chris Robinson seemed to embody a young Robert Plant. I would pick up tickets in a heartbeat to see them again.

There was a reunion show in 2007 though.

Seems to depend on whom you ask and when. The recent interview with Page featured on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone is very instructive. Page clearly states that he and Jones and Jason Bonham were quite ready willing and able to tour after the O2 concert in 2007, and in fact went through weeks of rehearsals, but Plant was unavailable (“He was doing his Alison Krauss project.”). Elsewhere in the interview, there is this exchange:

If you’re familiar at all with Robert Plant’s solo material, you can see what Page is talking about. Plant briefly revisited the Zep sound (most notably using samples on his 1988 album Now and Zen), but he has otherwise been much more interested in exploring the Eastern influences and softer, folkier sounds that were his contribution to the sound of Zeppelin (and alienating droves of Zeppelin fans in the process).

Never mind.

Awesome, hopefully they perform something!

Thanks for this, Bob. You’re the uncle.

Both “eastern influences” and folk music are clearly apparent in Page’s work prior to his meeting Plant and forming Zep. Have you never heard, for instance, any of the versions of White Summer by the Yardbirds? You can’t seriously be claiming that the heavier stuff in LZ was all Page and the folky/“eastern” stuff was all Plant.