Led Zeppelin Officially Broke Its Post-Breakup Vow — and Set a Ticket-Sales Record

When Led Zeppelin’s founding drummer, John Bonham, died due to an alcohol overdose in 1980, the classic-rock band broke up, and its three surviving members vowed to never reunite. Guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant, and bassist John Paul Jones did so informally a few times, mostly for tribute events.

But it wasn’t until a 2007 concert celebrating the life of music executive Ahmet Ertegun – who signed Led Zeppelin to his Atlantic Records – that Page, Plant, and Jones played a full set for the first time in almost three decades. The show was so historic, and demand to attend it was so high (with 20 million ticket requests tallied), that Led Zeppelin set a new Guinness World Record.

Led Zeppelin’s 12 Years of Dominance

Image via Atlantic Records

Few rock bands in history boast combined talents that can measure up to those of Plant, Page, Jones, and Bonham — or even enter the debate as to whether they could. Moreover, few music-group lineups that broke through to the mainstream maintained such a strong original lineup for as long as Led Zeppelin did.

The four musicians congealed the band in London in 1968, with Page having already achieved enormous attention for the guitar mastery he strutted in another influential British blues-rock band, the Yardbirds. (That group featured two other guitarists considered to be among the best of all time: Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.) Led Zeppelin eclipsed another band of fellow British blues enthusiasts, Cream, in the hard-rock sphere on the strength of their first two releases, 1969’s Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II.

Both those releases came out courtesy Atlantic, a record label that President Herb Abramson co-founded in October 1947 with Vice President Ertegun in New York City. Atlantic executives in November 1968 hammered out a five-year recording contract with manager Peter Grant — “the man who led Led Zeppelin,” according to Led Zeppelin biographer Dave Lewis — that gave the band a great deal of artistic control.

Thanks in part to their relationship with Ertegun and Atlantic, the band would go on to become one of the highest-selling music acts ever, with as many as 300 million copies of their albums sold globally.

John Bonham Wilds Out as Led Zeppelin’s Backbone

Image via Bob Gruen 

While Page and Plant took center stage at Led Zeppelin concerts, where the band solidified their fanbase, Bonham — along with the Who’s Keith Moon and Ginger Baker of Cream — broke out as one of the best rock drummers ever. Bonham’s hard-hitting style and extended drum solos during Led Zeppelin concerts garnered him the nickname “The Beast.”

Also similar to Moon, Bonham developed a reputation as a wild man, which helped congeal another nickname for him: “Bonzo.” In October 1980, the heavy-drinking drummer died from alcohol-related health issues. The remaining members of Led Zeppelin made Bonham’s importance clear by breaking up the band instead of tapping another drummer to fill his empty seat.

“We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were,” the surviving Led Zeppelin members said in a press release following Bonham’s death.

Subsequent years saw Led Zeppelin continue to gain popularity, thanks to both reissues and other posthumous releases. Additionally, hard-rock drummers both young and old — ranging from Nirvana’s Dave Grohl to Rush’s Neal Peart — continued to cite Bonham as having a significant influence on their own playing style.

Led Zeppelin Reunited to the Delight of Fans? Not Quite …

Led Zeppelin fans clamored for reunion performances in the band’s aftermath, and the band occasionally regrouped for concert appearances that punctuated those cries with crescendos. The first occurred in July 1985, when Page, Plant, and Jones reconvened to perform at the benefit concerts known as Live Aid organized by British music legends Bob Geldof and Midge Ure.

After failed attempts to record new music, Page, Plant, and Jones came together again in May 1988 for a concert that took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden that celebrated the 40th anniversary of Atlantic’s founding. “[Ertegun] was very keen for Jimmy, Robert, and Jones to appear,” Lewis wrote in his 1991 book Led Zeppelin: A Celebration.

Some non-publicized performances — and, most prominently, Page and Plant re-teaming for a world tour and live album featuring Led Zeppelin covers — ensued. But in December 2007, Led Zeppelin’s surviving members again showed their loyalty to Ertegun by re-forming for a full set paying tribute to the industry executive after his death a year before at age 83.

A Led Zeppelin Celebration Concert Is Held at Long Last

Page, Plant, and Jones’ previous performances during which they reunited as Led Zeppelin were poorly received, thanks to issues ranging from lack of proper rehearsals to inebriation. But the band members rectified their notorious post-breakup get-togethers with the 16-song set in 2007. The show was so widely hailed that it resulted in the release of Celebration Day, a documentary that was critically hailed in its own right, five years later.

Commercial success — which always outshone Led Zeppelin’s reception among critics, especially in their early years — also accompanied Led Zeppelin’s 2007 show. Guinness World Records 2009 said it had the “highest demand for tickets for one music concert when 20 million requests came through for the one-time reunion show in December 2007.”

The Celebration Day documentary saw a global theatrical release in October 2012. Posthumous Led Zeppelin activity continued after that, including 50th anniversary reissues of the band’s albums hitting stores and its music arriving on Spotify. However, Page, Plant, and Jones haven’t regrouped to perform as Led Zeppelin again.