Page Wants Led Zepplin Tour
TOKYO – Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday he was ready to take the iconic band on a world tour after burning up the stage at last month’s reunion concert in London. But it probably won’t be before September.
“The amount of work we put into O2 was what you would normally put into a world tour anyway,” Page, 64, said of the intense rehearsing the band did for the Dec. 10 concert at London’s O2 Arena.
The band’s three surviving members – Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones – were joined at the sold-out benefit show by the late John Bonham’s son Jason on drums.
Page, who was in Japan to promote the new Zeppelin release, “Mothership,” said the two-hour-plus concert was proof that Led Zeppelin can still perform at its best.
He said the band, which formed in 1968, was ready musically to get back together and take it out on a wider run, but it was not clear when it would go on tour as the singer had other plans.
“Robert Plant has a parallel project and he is busy with that until September,” Page said.
Plant and bluegrass star Alison Krauss will begin their world tour with a run of shows in the southern U.S. this spring. The two released an album in October called “Raising Sand” that debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard chart in the U.S. The duo will tour Europe in May before returning for North American shows still to be announced for June and July.
Page said the band set their standards very high before agreeing to do the reunion, their first in 20 years. Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 after the elder Bonham’s death.
Page said they rehearsed for weeks, apprehensive that the cohesion they had in the 1970s when they were at their peak might be hard to rediscover.
“We wanted people who might not have even been alive in 1980 when we finished to understand what we were,” he said.
Page said all went well until he broke a finger in three places, forcing the band to postpone the show for several weeks.
“But we did the show, and it was great,” he said. “It was instant in terms of chemistry.”
BY ERIC TALMADGE
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Hard Rock Hideout 
What else does Page have going on? If the Zep doesn’t happen, he can a) try to get back together with David Coverdale for yet another rehashing of the days when he was great or b) try to record another solo album even though the one 20 years ago wasn’t any good.
Robert Plant, on the other hand, has released some of his best work on his last two solo albums (which honor the spirit of Zeppelin better than any half-baked attempt to sound like Zeppelin). Plus, his project with Allison Krauss was fantastic. It might not appeal to anyone who doesn’t appreciate things that are subtle and understated, but the fact is, it’s amazing. I’d much rather see Plant/Krauss than a Zep reunion.
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