KLIZ, by way of Rolling Stone, is reporting that a rumor is going around that a Fall Tour will happen for The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck hopping along for the ride. Now, this is something I would pay to see. I just hope it isn't one of those "it'll only be 10 shows" in a couple of huge maga-markets where the tickets will be so outrageously high that you'll need to practically be a six figure income guy to get in the door.

This has already been shot down by the Beck camp, saying Beck is not a part of it.

For many years I thought that Page and Plant would get together with McCarty and Dreja and tour or record as the New Yardbirds. I think around the time of the Box Of Frogs thing I actually heard rumours to that effect. I would love to see something with either Beck or Page, but I think at this point neither can be bothered.

Isn't Paul Samwell-Smith still alive? Of course he'd never join in.

has this really been shot down? i was excited!:(

I saw the quote from Becks management over at Hoffmans site. It only said Beck was not involved, not that the Yardbirds thing was off. It would still be pretty cool with Page, but I don't see that happening, either.

Pollstar has a bunch of US dates for the Yardbirds in August:

http://www.pollstar.com/tour/searchall.pl?Content=A-YARDBI&Date_From=Today&Date_To=07-21-2009&By=Artist&PSKey=Y&StartSearch.x=13&StartSearch.y=10

Pollstar has a bunch of US dates for the Yardbirds in August:

Yes, but that's the current Yardbirds, who by the way, are pretty damn good. But these dates have nothing to do with the Page/Beck rumours which I have also seen shot down on several sites, but man would that would be cool as hell.

Although I would be thrilled as hell if this materialized, I have to take this rumor with more than a grain of salt.

Just a few weeks ago, another "Led Zeppelin reunion" rumor made the rounds, which, of course, turned out to be a recycled (discredited) story.

Also, what about Jimmy Page's supposed health woes?

Hi Jeff,
I haven't heard any news in a long while if Jimmy's back problems have been an issue in recent times.

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the reply. Aside from Jimmy's aching back, I've also heard that he has pretty serious hearing loss problems (much like Pete Townsend).

i really don't believe that jimmy page can play like he used to.

the page/plant albums were, in my opinion, terrible. the first one, zepellin covers, was interesting withthe middle eastern edge, and the second one, "clarksdale" (sp?) didn't have a single memorable tune.

and i shouldn't even mention page's work with the even less talented sean coombs.

jimmy page is someone who definitely has not gotten better with age.

renny

Wow!

Renny you are the first person I have heard/read with, intellegence and musical knowledge, that has said that with conviction and not a disclaimer. I couldn't agree more!

I'll take it a step further and say of the big three from the Yardbirds (Beck, Clapton and Page) he was the most overrated. (IMO)

I have been fortunate to see Page on both tours with Plant and they were fantastic. Mainly because it fullfilled my "dream" of seeing Zepplin and that was the closest I could come. I agree about the records but interestingly enough the tour for the 2nd record was much better than the first one and that record is 10x better than WTC which I truely hated.

Clapton hasn't lost anything on his talent but he has gotten boring. His records and concerts are very blah and boring.

Beck on the other hand seems to still be growing and willing to try new things and all four times seeing him, I have left with chills. Truely the best of the three. IMO

Thanks for speaking up Renny. Its hard to have a negative opinion on any of the supposed "rock-gods" w/o someone thinking you just slammed their momma's. I'll bet there are a lot more out there and on this board that feel the same and have been too afraid of the back-lash. Come on people it's time to come clean and get out of the closet. We're not saying he was bad in the past or is bad now... just his ability and creativness has dropped significantly.
Rich

Rich,

Of the three "guitar gods" from Yardbirds, I too like Jeff Beck best. But in their post-Yardbirds careers, Clapton has had the best songs so far. In fact, I don't think Beck really cares about songs as such.

and i hope you all realize that i love led zepellin and everything page did with them.

even his work in the firm didn't impress me, that was more paul rodgers band IMHO, anyone could have played the guitar parts. (except maybe some of the bow work)

renny

Hi Jeff & Everybody,
You know what would be interesting if it could happen someday? It would probably turn out to be unintentionally hilarious too. Somebody is going to have to have Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend and myself in a room for a conversation one of these times. The number of times that we say "What?" or "Exuse me?" will outnumber the actual words used in conversation. The irony would be that they don't wear hearing aids and I do.

P.S.-Somehow, there's a joke with a really good punchline in it in this. LOL!

Man, are you right! Although I liked "No Quarter" except for the new songs, "Walking into Clarksdale" was AWFUL! The only song I liked was "Most High", and even that wasn't up to thier standards. I thought "Coverdale/Page" was better.

As Far as Beck goes, I had doubts it would happen as soon as I heard about it. Beck is notrotious for backing out of projects. Remember back in '85 when he and Rod were going to tour? He backed out of that one at the last minute.

Jeff

I always thought Page was much better on record than live. I was fortunate enough to see Led Zeppelin back in their heyday('72, I think)and also saw Page and Plant . Both shows were great, but Jimmy was always a bit sloppy, and sometimes seemed to get lost.Clapton, at least since the early-mid '70's, has been much better live.(I don't know about now, as I haven't seen him live for a while)
Beck is great all around. I love all 3-Clapton was my early favorite, but I haven't liked much he's done in the last 15 years or so.

Interesting-I love "Walking Into Clarksdale" and hated "No Quarter". I'm not saying WIC was Page at his best, but I thought songs like "When I Was A Child", "Shining In The Light" and "When The World Was Young" were fantastic. I love the 70's style recording of the album and the mellow nature of it. "Most High" is the song I like the least. Most of my friends disliked the album, so I guess I'm in the minority there! But I really like it.
I thought that 1998 tour was pretty poor however, as Page was sloppy/awful. His solo on "Heartbreaker" was, well, heartbreaking!
I actually think outside of Zep, Page's best studio work was the Coverdale/Page album from 1993, the record that if, Robert could still belt it out, should've been a Page/Plant album.
Page is one of my all-time favorite studio guitarists-so inventive and creative-absolutely brilliant. Live however he could be downright ghastly.
I'm a huge Zep fan and I'm not afraid to say that Jimmy has been a disgrace at times (see Zep's 1988 reunion gig for Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary show-yikes!).
I can't see him doing this Yardbirds thing at all, but a studio album has supposedly been in the works for a couple years now. I'm still interested.

Actually, this hilarious scenario reminds me of a scene from the first "Airplane" movie: the one in which the three pilots are having several conversations at one time, while none is aware of what anyone else is saying. In particular, the co-pilot Roger (played by Kareem Jabbar) keeps yelling "What?" every time the other pilots respond to control tower instructions with "okay, roger"!

Since I've never seen Zeppelin live as a band, or in their various post-Zeppelin incarnations, I'm in no position to argue about whether Page can still cut it live (nor do I have any reasons to doubt the wisdom of your comments).

I did like the way Page and Plant sounded on No Quarter, which is sort of a live album.

I prefer to remain an optimist and stubbornly believe that Jimmy Page still has at least a couple of inspired performances left in him.

At least one can only hope.