He didn’t get the led out, but we’ll still take it. Jimmy Page made a surprise appearance at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, marking the first time in nearly a decade that the guitar legend and his equally legendary ponytail performed live in any capacity. The reason? To toast Rage Against the Machine. Just kidding. He made the trip overseas to induct Link Wray, his “hero,†into the Rock Hall, both with a pre-recorded message and a performance of “Rumble†— the sexy, distorted morphine drip of a song that got a young Page to pick up a guitar. “What is this? In those days, there were many guitar instrumentals, but as a 14 year-old kid who could barely play the guitar, it really had an effect on me,†Page recalled. “The vigor and the strength and the power in it. And you know something else, it was fearless. It was just phenomenal. The essence of cool. It’s just a masterpiece and he melted his way into the fibers of my body and my consciousness as far as the drama that you can set up with six strings. It’s the sort of stuff that can’t be taught. It’s the sort of stuff that you feel.â€
While his Led Zeppelin soul brother, Robert Plant, continues to tour and perform extensively, Page has resigned himself to a quieter life of music since a trio of brief performances in 2014. Some of his more excitable activities of late include a long-gestating London mansion feud with Robbie Williams and being forced to testify in the “Stairway to Heaven†trial.