The Story Behind Jimmy Page And Phil Collins’ “Fight”
Jimmy Page in an interview about Stairway To Heaven - BBC News / Youtube
Five years after John Bonham’s death in 1980 would make way for a would-be epic reunion of the remaining members of Led Zeppelin at the historic Live Aid performance. But it all became known for different reasons.
Led Zeppelin’s reunion was a disaster of sorts; it was the first time in years that the band got up and played onstage. It was a moment of full persuasion to let the members get up to their feet and perform with one another again. You thought it might be for good, but for the members, it’s a stain in their reputation that they could never erase.
Perhaps the one person who received the most blame out of all was former Genesis’ drummer, Phil Collins. The story of his arrival with the band was quite confusing, seeing that LZ had already recruited Tony Thompson to play the drum duties. What’s more bizarre was how Collins had no time to rehearse the songs, seeing that he was out in England playing with Sting earlier that day at the Webley Stadium, and he jumped onto the next flight to arrive in Philadelphia for the said event. Never for once did Collins imagine that he’d be painted the villain on the highly-anticipated reunion of the legends.
Albeit he’d listened to “Stairway to Heaven” over, when he arrived at the spot, Jimmy Page was already upset. Trying to sort his way out, Collins showed Page how he’d tried to mime the drums, and the guitarist threw nothing but brutal remarks to him before and after the show.
Collins remembered to this day how Page was extremely mad at him. In an interview from MTV, the drummer said: “Then Page says: ‘One drummer was halfway across the Atlantic and didn’t know the stuff.’ And I got pissed off. Maybe I didn’t know it as well as he’d like me to have done, but… I became the flagship, and it looked like I was showing off.”
If he’d known what was coming to bite his ass off, Collins would have never picked the gig over a million years, following how’d he remained the only one to blame for the disaster. But in all honesty, everyone should have a fair share of criticism from that show.
