Jimmy Page has said that he regretted choosing former Yes drummer Phil Collins for the catastrophic 1985 Led Zeppelin reunion at Live Aid in an interview with The Times and The Sunday Times.
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones were all there for the scheduled three-song set performance. The band’s original drummer, John Bonham, passed away in 1980, thus Collins and Tony Thompson both played the drums for the first time since Led Zeppelin started touring.
Page noted that putting the band back together from scratch “was not clever” while speaking about the aforementioned occurrence. Page admitted, “The drummer couldn’t get the beginning of ‘Rock and Roll’, So we were in real trouble with that.”
Led Zeppelin only had a 2-hour practice window for their 3-song set (“Rock and Roll,” “Whole Lotta Love,” and “Stairway to Heaven”), which left the band members unprepared for the numerous blunders that were made. This was another point made by the 77-year-old artist.
In an interview, Phil Collins also shared his thoughts on the awful Live Aid performance, saying: “If I could have walked off, I would have done, ’cause I wasn’t needed and I felt like a spare part.”
