Squeezing the Lemon: Led Zeppelin & the 10 Most Shocking Rock and Roll Reunions
Five years ago this week, Led Zeppelin fans young and old squeezed their pants full of lemon juice when the band's three surviving golden gods -- Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - announced that they'd be reuniting for a one-off concert in London. John Bonham's son Jason would man the skins.
Zeppelin, pre-united
The show was part of a tribute to the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, a renowned champion of global superstars from Ray Charles to the Rolling Stones. All of the proceeds would go to scholarships in his name. For all Zepheads cared, however, the concert could have been held in tribute to desiccated dog dicks.
For the first time since Bonzo's death in 1980, tickets with the words "Led Zeppelin" on them would be printed up and sold to the public. This was big.
By all accounts, the reunion show was a success. Not only did the white wizards in Zeppelin manage to do themselves justice onstage, but the performance made the Guinness Book of World Records for sparking the "Highest Demand for Tickets for One Music Concert." Why was demand so high? Because by 2007, very few fans still held out hope of ever seeing Led Zeppelin together again.
In a day and age when everybody from the Backstreet Boys to the Fat Boys eventually get back together for the money, the only musical reunions that raise eyebrows anymore are the groups that no one suspected could be reassembled without threat of violence. Led Zep may have reunited for a cause, but more often it's the promise of riches that wields the power to patch over even the most festering of old wounds.
And frankly, that's just fine with us. Without further ado, Rocks Off brings you the ten most shocking rock and roll reunions in history (thus far!):
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