Led Zeppelin released the live album Celebration Day on November 19, 2012, documenting their reunion at London’s O2 Arena on December 10, 2007. The CD and digital editions preserved a 16-song performance honoring Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joined by Jason Bonham, son of their late drummer John Bonham.
“Kashmir” appeared late in the set, before the closing pair of “Whole Lotta Love” and “Rock and Roll.” Its official performance video comes from the accompanying concert film, directed by Dick Carruthers, with Page supervising the audio.
The size of that set grew as the reunion took shape. Page told Classic Rock before the concert that the first private rehearsal was about finding out how the four musicians played together. Once that worked, they began choosing material and expanding what had initially been proposed as an hour-long appearance. The planned set grew to 75 minutes, then 90, and eventually beyond two hours. They intended to keep rehearsing right up to the O2 show.
Preparation mattered to Page. In the same interview, he contrasted the work for the O2 with the limited rehearsal before the band’s Live Aid appearance in 1985. “So this time it’s important that we’re well prepared,” he said. Jason’s place in the lineup was also grounded in experience: he had recorded and toured with Page in the 1980s, as well as played with Zeppelin at Atlantic’s 40th-anniversary concert. Page regarded him as an established musician who had already demonstrated what he could do with the material.
Jason also knew details of Zeppelin’s concert arrangements that could escape the musicians who had created them. In a 2010 interview with Classic Rock, Jones recalled the drummer identifying how songs had changed between past performances when he and Page got stuck. “For Your Life” produced a different problem. When the pair struggled to remember playing it, Jason pointed out that they had never performed it onstage. Its inclusion at the O2 meant the reunion set contained a live debut alongside songs the band had performed for years.
That preparation helped when the show didn’t go to plan. Speaking to NME at the film’s London premiere in 2012, Page said the musicians couldn’t hear their stage monitors during the first two numbers. He credited their rehearsal work with getting them through the opening. Page also explained that the concert hadn’t been conceived as a film project, and the band waited two years before watching the footage so they could assess it with more distance.
Turning that night into a release took longer still. Celebration Day reached cinemas in October 2012 before arriving through Swan Song/Atlantic in audio and home-video editions. Fans could hear the concert across two CDs or watch the performance on DVD and Blu-ray. The deluxe packages also included the dress rehearsal filmed at Shepperton Studios on December 6, 2007. That footage extended the release beyond the arena performance, showing the four musicians working through the set just days before the tribute concert.
In 2014, Celebration Day won the Grammy for Best Rock Album.
