.LONDON (AP) – The newest member of Led Zeppelin was given the honor of kicking off the band’s reunion Monday night, pounding out the beat before the surviving founders joined in on a near-perfect “Good Times Bad Times.”
After the lights went down at London’s O2 Arena, newsreel footage of a 1975 performance in Tampa, Fla., was projected onstage. With thousands of fans worked into a frenzy, drummer Jason Bonham, son of the late John Bonham, began thumping the skittering beat, soon to be joined by guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones and singer Robert Plant.
The song, rarely played live in the band’s heyday, proved a perfect starting point for this performance:
“In days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man,” sang Plant, showing no trouble reproducing his trademark wail at 59. “Now I’ve reached that age, I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can. … No matter how I try, I find my way to the same old jam.”
While Page and Bonham both sported sunglasses, Plant mercifully kept his button-down shirt buttoned up.