Robert Plant Once Opened for Dee Snider (Sort Of)

Robert Plant once opened for Dee Snider? Yes, it's true, and it's an older story that has resurfaced recently.

This moment was discussed on an April 2014 segment of the singer's Dee Snider Radio program. Plant was on the show to talk about his then-new album Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar. As the phone interview was coming to a close, Plant says to Snider, "I liked them songs you were singing at that wedding we went to." This causes Snider to literally laugh out loud, and after he hung up with Plant, he dives into the story.

The wedding in question was for the son of Phil Carson, who was Snider's manager and previously an executive at Atlantic Records that had worked extensively with Led Zeppelin. Snider says, "Whenever a singer shows up -- I don't care what kind of singer you are -- at a wedding, people, for some reason, expect you to get up and sing. This is a little frustrating because nobody else is expected to do their job at a party."

Snider mentions how there was a live band at the wedding. Considering the wedding's attendance, he assumed that meant famous singers would be pressured to sing. Snider spots Plant and asks if he's going to sing. Plant says no, and they both commiserate about how annoying it is to be expected to sing at weddings when you're a singer.

Plant then hatches a plan with Snider to go to the wedding service, shake the necessary hands at the reception, and then slip away to get a private dinner. However, once they're at the reception, Plant takes to the stage.

Snider is taken aback by everything. He then says his manager approaches him to ask him if he's going to sing, too. Snider says since Plant sang, of course, he'll sing now. His manager replied, "Well, this is the last time Robert opens for you."

Snider then takes to the stage and playfully yells at the reception crowd about how singers are always expected to sing at weddings. He gets a lot of laughs, but then it's time to get back at Plant. Snider says he recalled the Led Zeppelin frontman saying how much he hates hearing his own songs. So, he asks the reception band if they know the Zeppelin classic "Rock and Roll."

"Plant, you son of a bitch! You said we weren't singing. This one's for you!" Snider recalled saying to the crowd.

As Snider is singing, Plant stealthily makes his way to the stage. He ends up sitting on the edge of the stage while Snider is singing "Rock and Roll." Once it gets to the end of the song, Plant sings the final utterance of the word "time" to bring the song to a close.

And that's how Robert Plant once opened for Dee Snider!

New tours are seemingly announced every week. Oftentimes, those tours feature outstanding multi-act lineups and other great supporting acts.

With that in mind, we can't help but think about all of the strange opening acts and headliner combos in rock history, and there have been some doozies.

A great example of this was the Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto concert in 2003. The show was organized as an economic boom for Toronto, which was hit pretty badly by the SARS outbreak. (It's also why the show is affectionately known as SARSStock. Over 450,000 people attended the show, which featured the headlining lineup of The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, The Guess Who...and Justin Timberlake.

Bookers and promoters didn't think about how a predominantly rock crowd would react to Timberlake. It's a memory that still sticks with Timberlake, who reflected on it during a February 2020 appearance on BBC's The Graham Norton Show.

"You would think Canadians are historically peaceful people, ... It was a bit of a blur," recalled Timberlake, who at the time had just started his solo career. "I just remember saying to the band before we went on stage, 'I don't think this is going to go well.' Little did I know how bad it was going to go."

So, how bad was it? People threw bottles of urine at him!

Jokingly, Timberlake said, "I still have a lot of trauma from this incident. After the first song, the host of the festival comes out and [tries to wave me off stage,] and I'm like, 'No, man! I'm staying out here! We're doing this!'"

Fans then continued to throw the bottles of urine at him, but things eventually calmed down. Timberlake said, "After [the second song of the set] either one of two things happened: Either they ran out of nerve, because they knew I was going to stay there, or they ran out of urine."

Fortunately, no bottles of urine were involved in the following five examples of strange opening act and headliner combos. However, they all are very interesting and almost baffling that they even happened. Enjoy!