I’ve been reading a lot about Led Zeppelin lately through books and stuff and I’ve been reading about how Robert and Jimmy didn’t like their 1985 reunion with Phil Collins. They were saying that this performance was really bad. Led Zep fans seem to agree that this performance was their worst.

I decided to go to youtube and give it a listen myself. Technically, this isn’t a bad performance at all. Sure, the musicians on stage weren’t the best. The two drummers were way off, Jimmy may have sounded out of tune a bit and Robert’s singing weren’t the best but hey… keep in mind that playing on stage is not always gonna be about perfection, ya know?

When you play in a band, keep in mind that you can’t expect every performance to be so great. Some nights you’re gonna be great and some nights you’re gonna be bad on stage. That’s how it is.

I thought they sounded pretty good, in my opinion. Could have been better but they were okay. Yeah, this performance was unrehearsed and rushed but that’s the beauty of live performing, ya know? You never know what to expect. These guys shouldn’t have been insecure with themselves in this performance and sometimes they can be their own worst critic.

If you get up on stage and play with a bunch of musicians you never played with before and haven’t rehearsed and if you sucked, who cares, ya know? That’s the beauty of music. It was never about perfection. So I think Led Zep and the fans really need to relax about this performance. It wasn’t all that bad and you still have to give them props for the effort in trying. Even though they weren’t at their best, they still pumped up the audience anyways.

When you play live the last thing you wanna do is worry about if you’re gonna be good or bad. Just get up and play. That’s it.

Whenever I play a show myself, I never worry about whether I’m gonna be good or bad. I just get up on stage to see what happens. If I was good, great. If I sucked, oh well, not the end of the world. You can never tell whether you’re gonna be good or bad. Just get up there and do your thing. Playing live is not about how good or bad you are, it’s about the enjoyment of music and loving it.

Kev