Despite rumors of a summer tour, Billboard reports that Led Zeppelin will not be hitting the road this summer. What's funny is that before reuniting with your long-defunct band became the new black, the first sentence of this article would have been akin to saying "The Beatles will never again perform with Stu Sutcliffe"; a non sequitur at best. However, despite the absence of late drummer John Bonham and the fact that all remaining band members qualify for subscriptions of AARP, the Zep have indeed performed in the past decade - in the U.K., of course, at the London O2 in December 2007.

Now, I realize I could keep going with the senior citizen jokes and wrap up the end of this article right quick, but I am honestly on the fence about this. Sure, I think it's pretty awesome that Robert Plant's pipes are intact and bringing the wail, especially in his (also pretty awesome) new project with Alison Krauss. Jimmy Page, no doubt, still has the chops that once made bras fly off with reckless abandon. But does it make anyone else feel weird that Led Zeppelin, a band that embodied an entire era of rock music, has essentially been uprooted from its time and placed with the context of like, Christina Aguilera? I'd be in the front row if you gave me the chance, but I'd feel vaguely strange about it ... almost like I wasn't meant to see it. Then again, I'm the girl who got weirded out by a Dismemberment Plan reunion (I attended, of course, and had a blast accordingly), a band that called it quits a mere five years ago.

It is also entirely possible that I am putting way too much thought into this and you're totes bored by now. So here's the facts: Led Zep are having quite a ball playing together again, and a tour may not be out of the question in the future. Page and Plant are definitely cleaning up the cash every time they appear together in public, but what silences this cynic is that their enjoyment seems genuine. And I guess I'm okay with that. Since obviously, everyone was looking to me for some insight on this particular topic, I leave you with the one piece of real news in this "story": Jimmy Page has been quoted as saying,
"[Plant is] really busy with [his Alison Krauss] project, certainly until September. So I can't give you any news on anything at the moment." The magic words. Here's hoping. I think.