After dominating the 1970s with multi-platinum albums and classic rock staples like “Stairway to Heaven,” “Kashmir,” and “Black Dog,” Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, according to the Associated Press, following the death of drummer John Bonham. The surviving members — Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones — would reunite less than five years later, performing on the Philadelphia stage at Live Aid in 1985, staged to raise money for African famine relief, according to Far Out.
To fill in for Bonham, Zeppelin recruited Chic’s Tony Thompson and Genesis’s Phil Collins. Nevertheless, the show was a mess. Neither Thompson nor Collins had been given much rehearsal time, while Plant had rehearsed to thoroughly that he’d lost his voice (according to Rolling Stone, via Blabbermouth). Meanwhile, Jimmy Page didn’t get a chance to warm up and played the gig on an out-of-tune guitar. In 2004, Led Zeppelin refused to allow their “sub-standard” performance to be included on a Live Aid DVD (per the BBC).
Nevertheless, and after two of its members recorded and toured together in the ’90s as Page and Plant, Led Zeppelin, with Bonham’s son, Jason Bonham, behind the kit, reunited once more. In 2007, the mostly reformed Led Zeppelin played London’s O2 Arena, part of a large bill of acts to pay tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the deceased head of the band’s label, Atlantic Records. The show raised money for Ertegun’s educational foundation.
