If John Bonham would have lived, how long would Led Zeppelin have lasted????

I've been imagining a couple of scenarios for Led Zeppelin, had John Bonham lived:

#1) Since it is well known that John did NOT like to be on tour, could it be he might have even quit after the US dates of the ITTOD tour? And if John had quit instead of died, would Zeppelin have STILL have decided to hang it up?

#2) John Bonham quits Led Zeppelin, and they replace him.

#3) Robert Plant might have left Led Zeppelin in the early 80's anyway. Robert was really "chomping at the bit" to be a pop star in the 80s, and it was very important to him. Would Robert have eventually left Led Zeppelin ANYWAY, eventually, for a solo career?

#4) Robert launches a solo carreer and becomes enamored with it and Led Zeppelin suffers, and the Led Zeppelin album output slows down to one album every 6-8 years due to Robert focusing on both his solo career and Led Zeppelin.

#5) Led Zeppelin stays together and continues right along through the 80's and 90's, releasing classic albums just as good as what they did in the 70's?

#6) Led Zeppelin stays together and continues right along through the 80's, BUT!! Robert INSISTS on a more "modern" sound for Led Zeppelin.

#7) Jimmy and Robert have a huge blow up over artistic differences sometime around 1985 and never play again.

So... how do YOU think things would have played out for Led Zeppelin had John Bonham lived?

 

If Bonham slept on his side that night Jimmy Page overdoses on the US leg of the 1980 tour.

 

I think they would have put out one or two albums in the early 80's then disbanded for the rest of the decade due to many of the reasons you listed. Then they would have returned in the 90's, starting with an Unplugged special that would have led to a tour in the same vein then after that a full power return.

Apparently Jimmy and John wanted the followup album to Out Door to be much harder rocking. What might have been.

 

Pagey would have died at some point.

 

They wouldn't have lasted very long. I think the writing was on the wall.

They would have finished the 80 tour and they'd record one more time at least. Maybe another tour and that's about it.

Also Pages drug use wasn't the only problem. Grant was using too and they had people that weren't the nicest of blokes on their tours. I think Plant would have grown weary of it all even more so than he already was.

I really do think the whole thing would have ended pretty soon into the 80's.

 

From the last gig I witnessed in Oakland in 1977 I thought they were done performance wise as the consumption of substances was evident. I guess they lived beyond that humility. They were so good early on, they had a great run.

 

I think you can probably look at the Stones 80's career as a guideline as to what may have happened to Zeppelin.

I do not think the 1980 USA tour would have gone that well. There may have been a good few gigs cancelled and things curtailed due to 'exhaustion' and 'food poisoning'. I don't think the USA tour would have necessarily seen Jimmy Page dead from a heroin overdose. By 1980 he was already five years into long term drug addiction and was clearly not in great shape but seemed to be struggling by. I think locking himself in his home for a good couple of years in an upstairs room with the curtains drawn doing smack after Bonham died (which he allegedly did) wasn't necessarily any worse for him healthwise than being back on the road. Peter Grant was losing his iron grip too and was in no postion to effectively manage a disintegrating band through another major US jaunt. Richard Cole was in jail in Italy and the old road crew was smacked out and falling apart. The whole thing was a recipe for disaster. Bonham was not in good health either, drinking heavily and using all sorts of hard drugs. He was very unfit and beginning to resemble Keith Moon as he was towards the end. I think evey gig on that US tour would have been a crap shoot as to whether the band could get through it in one piece. The summer Euro tour was very patchy and an exercise in papering over the cracks. I definately think they would have come back from America in late 1980 a fractured group, with Robert Plant telling them he had no intention of making a new album in 1981. I think he would have made Pictures At Eleven anyway at that time, enjoyed it and pressed on with making The Principal Of Moments. This would have caused a rift with Jimmy Page who may have let him go and do his thing with Pictures but been keen to have him back to make a Zeppelin album in late 1982. There would possibly have been a Zep album in 1984 but it would have been a weak record like The Stones Dirty Work. I can only imagine that the band would have returned to the road in 1984/85 still in poor shape with Page off heroin but drinking heavily and Plant itching to get back and make a third solo album free of the dated Zeppelin rock sound. Plant would have quite after that tour and the band would have probably been on ice until 1994 and Unledded. I don't know what would have happened to John Bonham between 1980 and the early 90's. Would his health and inclination to be in a touring rock band have gone downhill anyway.

In essence after 1980 there would have been one more album in 1984 and a tour to support it then nothing until 1994

 

This.

IMO with the shape he was in, it was only a matter of time before Page snuffed it. The man looked like a walking corpse in 1977- his condition only got worse by 1980 (gawd, that doubleneck Gibson of his probably weighed more than Jimmy did!) Surely at some point in the U.S. (I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in L.A.; I envision a John Belushi type ending for poor Pagey) he would have snorted or shot up a bit too much and that would have been the end of Zeppelin, right there. There were shows on the European tour where Page is doing his pre-"Black Dog" speech to the crowd and the man sounds like a sniffling incoherent zombie. Bonham's untimely death (lest we forget, John Paul Jones said more than once, "It could have happened to any of us.") might not have been enough to make Jimmy Page clean up his act completely -that would take a few more years- but it must have at least put the zap on Page's head. We can count our blessings Page is still with us today, even if he's basically doing S.F.A. at the moment

Another likely scenario would have been the band imploding whilst on the American tour. Let's face it, as anyone who has heard some of the Europe '80 gigs will admit, they were pretty much below Zeppelin's usual performance standards (which had slipped considerably even by '77) and all too many times I can imagine Robert Plant thinking, onstage, hearing Jimmy fumble his way through "Since I've Been Loving You" or whathaveyou, "Why am I doing this? Why am I here? We're making bloody fools of ourselves in front of fifteen thousand people!" I could easily see Plant cracking and basically saying, "F--- this, I'm outta here." He didn't really care about Led Zeppelin anymore at that point anyway, and was clearly just going through the motions. JPJ and Bonzo probably would have preferred to stay home with their families as well. The 1980 U.S. tour would have been a total disaster IMO, given the poor quality of the European shows, Page's addiction and Plant's antipathy towards the whole enterprise.

 

Sounds about right... except I see another guitarist joining for the tours which free up Page to do more dazzling soloing, and givng the band a fresh shot in the arm.

An acoustic folk/blues album after ITTOD perhaps, major chages to shake things up. Bonzo going off to fill in for a dead Moon on a who tour.

Everyone excited to get back to work after Percy's solo outting, and Bonzo's Who tour.

 

I don't see a John Belushi end for Page. He wasn't a wild 'speedball' dangerous nutcase abuser like Belushi who was always heading for a spectacular crash. Page was more a secretive long term drug addict, just maintaining on a daily basis. He was in an opiated drug haze and his weight and diet must have been drastically bad. Also his co-ordination and playing was shot to bits due to that and no proper sleep, but i don't think he played fast and loose with the drugs the way some notorious hellraisers did.

I can't see a second guitarist being drafted in live. Page has always been a lone wolf after the dual guitar yardbirds and i don't think he likes another guitarist to ride side saddle. He hasn't been tempted to get back up in any of his post zep projects so i dont see it. Dazzling soloing? Have you heard tapes of him playing Achilles Last Stand in 77 and 80? He sounds like he is playing with boxing gloves on. It's pitiful. Shreddies!

Bonham in The Who. Just don't see that one either. I don't think Bonzo would be up for it and i cannot see Pete or Rog going for that either.

 

I think their "course was run". Physically, Page and Bonham were marginal, and unless they had some real "wakeup call", that would not have changed. The last two albums were not good albums, at least compared to the first ones. These "what if" questions are stupid (imo).

 

Are you any relation to Neal Schoen by chance? If so: please ask him to remove his RATHER LARGE ego, from his rear end? PAY/GIVE Stevie whatever the F&&^ he wants, ask him to stop this ridiculous nonsense in trotting out tribute band singers to replace Perry, please stop the whole calling it "Journey" cherade, and just do a proper, 1 yr tour w/Stevie, Gregg Rollie, Steve Smith, Ross, Jonathan, and Neal, tell him he needs to apologize to MANY MANY MANY thousands of upset/pissed off/disgruntled lifelong Journey fans(namely me-for him and Cain pulling this nonsense), and I *might* forgive him. Ruined my all time favorite band........


If not.......disregard.

 

Well, first off, his last name is Schon, and no, I am no relation. Secondly, I am also a big (early) Journey fan, and also love the Santana albums that Schon and Rollie did together. I think they should re-join Santana. That would be really fantastic. Rock On...

 

I saw Zeppelin in 77, and Page was on total fire, it was one of those nights. But tragedy struck, and I don't want to go into it.

And no Folk/Blues album either huh?????????

 

The problem w/ "Achilles" in '77 is that most nights they played it waaaaaay too fast -too much coke methinks- even throwing Bonham off on occasion. In 1980 they played it closer to the studio tempo, but Page was just too stickyfingered to carry it off. I think Knebworth (the DVD version, which comes from the August 4 show) is the only good live version of ALS; I'm surprised it wasn't doctored beyond digitally harmonizing Page's guitar (see "The Garden Tapes" site for the gory details).

Having heard all the available live versions of "Achilles Last Stand" (my favourite Zeppelin tune), I have a theory that when they more or less nailed it, Robert would sing, "I know the way, know the way, know the way...". On a bad night, he sings, "I used to know the way, used to know the way..."

The hell of it is, from a picker's point of view (I've been playing for twenty years) "Achilles" really isn't that hard to play; it's actually a lot easier than it sounds...I'm by no means comparing my guitar playing abilities to Jimmy Page, but in order to play ALS as badly as Page did most nights, I actually have to, like, work at it...some of those 1980 shows, they sound like a bad high school garage Led Zep tribute band.

It's amazing that Keith Richards was an even bigger junkie than Jimmy Page, yet the drugs had a much less detrimental affect on Keith's playing abilities, but maybe that's a discussion for another thread.

 

Keith Richards is no Jimmy Page, as guitar a player...

 

Why did you have to say that?

 

Where are you getting your information? I have never heard this. In fact, there was one interview with Robert, in the late seventies, where he was asked if he ever thought about releasing a solo album. In so many words, he answered no and that if he ever did do a solo album it would be dreadful.

 

Could'nt help myself?

 

I think much higher of you than that!

 

You have to take what Plant says (or, has said) with a huge grain of salt.

 

I don't know how much longer Zep would have continued had Bonham not died, but I suspect Page somehow felt responsible for it, and this has affected his confidence in the years since. Around the time of ITTOD he was taking of experimenting with guitar synths, and the influence of Django Reinhart, but he hasn't done anything adventurous since the demise of Zep. Maybe if if he wasn't burdened with the albatross of Bonham's death, he would have gone on to innovate again.

 

I have to agree. While musically im sure they could have had a few good ideas. The idea of Zep was well over. Thats one of the biggest problems with most classic rock acts, not knowing when to hang it up.

Just cause an act is "able" to record new stuff or to still tour, doesnt mean its necessary. Zep had a somewhat limited palate of music to begin with. (( I love them of course )) but still see that they werent exactly an act able to morph into other genres of rock music as many other groups did. "In through the out door" was about as far as they could stretch.

They did several great albums, why not exit on a high note...

 

That just goes to show how far out of the loop Page was at that time. The Roland Guitar Synth was already being by others by that point and unless he came with something really awesome, his use of the guitar synth wouldn't have been a huge deal.

To the OP, I'm not sure how much longer Zep would've lasted with everyone in the "state" they were in. There's obviously no way of knowing. Page and Bonham as we all know had substance abuse problems. And they needed to clean up. Even doing so, the inevitbale temptations on a U.S. tour might've brought a relapse. Page had a long way to go in regaining his chops back.

I think Zep was meant for the 1970's and that decade was theirs. I can't imagine what they'd created post 1980.

 

When he sang "If I Drink Too Much at Night, Somebody Please Bring me Down" I took it seriously, and figured that they were doing some very serious late night drinking and druging, in a large castle with high stone walls that nobody could ever enter, nobody except Satan maybe.