Is It Led Zeppelin Without Robert Plant?

Earth jumped the gun on the Led Zeppelin reunion last month, when rumors that Robert Plant would rejoin his legendary bandmates kicked into overdrive. But Plant quickly harshed that buzz, clarifying that he would not tour with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham’s son Jason in 2009, and perhaps not at all. But […]
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Earth jumped the gun on the Led Zeppelin reunion last month, when rumors that Robert Plant would rejoin his legendary bandmates kicked into overdrive. But Plant quickly harshed that buzz, clarifying that he would not tour with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham's son Jason in 2009, and perhaps not at all.

But the rhythm section is soldiering forward without him, according to BBC News. Which raises a burning, existential question: Is it Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant?

"There's no point in just finding another Robert," John Paul Jones confessed to the BBC while at a guitar show in Exeter. "You could get that out of a tribute band, but we don't want to be our own tribute band."

Fair enough, but will it be anyway? As lifelong guitarists, Listening Post grew up idolizing Jimmy Page, but we didn't mistake Page's rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" at the ARMS charity concerts or his offshoot supergroup The Firm for a Led Zeppelin reunion. Throw in the fact that Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger recently lost a lawsuit to John Densmore and Jim Morrison's estate explaining that remaining members of The Doors could not tour under that name, and Led Zeppelin's status, symbolic and otherwise, as a band comes into question.

So what's your call, Posters? Is it Zep without Plant? Would it be Zep without Page? And who would make a serviceable replacement for Plant? Please don't say the dude from The Darkness.

Photo: Wikipedia/Atlantic Records

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