Page Vs. Plant: Taking Sides in a Messy Rock-God Divorce

Sorry, Jimmy Page, but Robert Plant is depressingly on-target in his recent slam of you. It’s understandable that he’s “disappointed and baffled” by you continuing to pine for reunion shows and tours.

You’ve hinted that you’re working on some new material. Great. But please make it count. Don’t let it be another attempt to resurrect the heavier side of Zeppelin. Let Led Zeppelin loom ever larger by the inability of others to copy it — even you, its very creator.

Mr. Page, you’ve been my idol, my personal avatar of coolness and greatness for 35 of my 49 years of existence. And Plant has been that charismatic, larger-than-life figure.

Do What Thou Wilt—Not What Robert Wilt

I’ve actually been more of a fan of you than of Plant, because Plant didn’t discipline his voice the way you disciplined your guitar or the way Jonesy and Bonzo disciplined their instruments. Never has such a good voice so often been put to such bad use.

Plant’s lack of vocal discipline — and all that nasally yowling that’s been captured on concert bootlegs — may well be why he’s more reluctant to revisit a full-blown Zeppelin than you. Plant may realize his imprint on the band was outlandish and cartoonish. And while he could pull it off when he had the energy and look of a 25-year-old, he just doesn’t want to even try to do it anymore.

Quietly bury all reunion hopes. Do it out of pride in how “Celebration Day” is a perfect capstone to Zeppelin’s live career. Do it out of respect for Bonzo: You can’t claim that he’s irreplaceable while rushing off to replace him with people from Plant’s solo bands or the Black Crowes or even Bonham’s own very talented son.

You’re Jimmy Page. Page & Plant was great in Bonzo’s time, but that time is over. Jimmy Page is all you are and all you need. Your true fans just want you to get out of your own way.

I’m certainly grateful that you’ve lovingly curated your band’s collection over the past few decades, in a way that’s allowed great artists 50 years younger than you to fully grasp Zep’s greatness. And your current remastering and revising the Zeppelin catalog is like a gift from heaven.

But soon it’s time to stop recreating the past and start creating the future. My advice: Stop looking for a conventional singer-centered rock band. I saw your boyhood mate Jeff Beck at the Greek Theater a few nights ago as he rollicked through various blues tunes, mostly without a singer. We’d all have sat at his feet for hours, happy to hear him play whatever struck him.

We’d be the same way with you. Just get out there and play — I don’t just mean “play your guitar,” I mean, play around. Have fun, like a child. It will only add to your legacy, more than a reunion tour with a reluctant Plant would.

Stop aiming to recreate Zeppelin. You’ll miss — even with Plant at your side. Don’t mine the Zeppelin catalog anymore. Instead, mine all those qualities that gave life to Led Zeppelin — the passion for rhythm & blues, for folk and country music, for Middle Eastern influences, for an omnivore’s diet of music, for a willingness to snub conventional wisdom and moronic rock critics.

Here’s a reality check: There was already a permanent creative split in Zeppelin by the last album. “All My Love” was a worthy new classic, but you somewhat torpedoed its legacy by deeming it un-Zeppelinish. Frankly, the song was a great creative place where Jones and Plant were willing to take the group, and it shows that you and they were no longer on the same, well, page. In the end, it seems pretty clear to me that Zeppelin wouldn’t have lasted much beyond 1980 if Bonham had lived.

One way or another, you’d have had to reinvent yourself. Minus Plant.

Yes, people clap like seals for today’s embalmed version of the Rolling Stones. But what Plant’s doing is more admirable, trying new things in front of small audiences, instead of taking fans’ money for churning out oldies. Plant said he’d never stoop to the Fat Elvis Vegas phase, and you gotta give him credit for being true to his word.

There are a million ways you can be the “Jimmy Page of the 21st century” that you once told Charles Shaar Murray was on the horizon. Go tour with your guitar-god buddy Beck (who talks here of how much he’d love the opportunity) and both of you can have some fun while dazzling people old and young. Mentor some great and grateful new musicians, as Beck is doing. Keep plowing into new music. Keep taking chances. Do what thou wilt, dammit.

And keep being Jimmy Page. Minus Plant.