Jimmy Page, the legendary guitarist and sonic architect for Led Zeppelin, is harboring a whole lotta anger towards organizers of the 2012 Olympics.
Page says he is “very upset” about not being invited to perform at –or even attend — the London Games opening ceremony.
He’s certainly got his reasons. Four years ago, Page generously agreed to help promote London as the site of the 2012 Olympics. He performed Zeppelin’s classic “Whole Lotta Love” with Leona Lewis atop a red double-decker bus at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
“Of course, I’m feeling rather hurt,” Page told reporters at the Royal Academy’s Diamond Jubilee Celebration of the Arts this week.
“We put so much into Beijing,” he mused. “But we weren’t helped by the Chinese giving us next-to-no practice time.”
Perhaps Pagey shouldn’t feel so bad about the London snub. It’s possible, one supposes, that maybe Olympic organizers thought he was now deceased. But that didn’t stop them from inviting Keith Moon (former drummer for the Who) to perform this year.
Incidentally, Keith Moon has been dead since 1978. Whoops.
A month ago Olympic organizers had asked The Who’s longtime manager, Bill Curbishley (who also managed Jimmy Page’s career throughout most of his post-Zeppelin years), if they could borrow Moon for the closing ceremony of this year’s Summer Olympics. Which led to one of the most hilarious e-mail exchanges in rock history:
“Keith now resides in Golders Green crematorium,” Curbishley wrote to the Olympic committee. “Having lived up to the Who’s anthemic line, ‘I hope I die before I get old’.”
Curbishley added: “If they have a round table, some glasses and candles, we might contact him.”
Meanwhile, Jimmy Page is very much alive and itching to play again at the Olympics. The sprightly 68 year-old guitarist is keeping busy these days running his own official website, sitting in with artists such as Donovan, Roy Harper, and the Black Crowes, and writing songs for an upcoming album.
He’s also been going through the process of remastering and re-releasing some of his past film soundtrack work. Last winter, Page made a limited-edition remaster of the Death Wish II soundtrack available exclusively through his official website. In March he released Lucifer Rising, a soundtrack he composed and produced for the controversial 1972 Kenneth Anger film. (Page and Anger bitterly parted ways during the making of the film and his music was never heard by the public until now.)
At least Led Zeppelin fans have some comfort in Page’s latest offerings, but apparently the world will be denied their “Stairway to Heaven” at the London Olympics this year.
