Did That Really Happen?!: Yes With Jimmy Page Covering The Beatles' 'I'm Down'!

Back before he was known for fighting neighbor Robbie Williams in court over mansion renovations, Jimmy Page was known to play a little guitar.

On one such night in 1984, Page blew the dust off his guitar case and joined the prog-rock legends Yes onstage for a spirited version of the Beatles' "I'm Down".

If you're having a hard time imagining this spectacle, just imagine if you were in attendance that night. It's hard enough keeping up with who was even in Yes in 1984, much less trying to wrap your head around why one of the most important guitarists in rock history is allowing himself to be seen in public with a bunch of stuffy prog types to play, of all things, a Beatles tune.

For as unlikely a musical union as this was at the time, the news of Jimmy Page joining Yes onstage in England was barely mentioned in the rock press at all and, if not for this poor-quality boot, scant little exists to prove the collaboration ever took place.

What many forget is that, three years prior, Page formed a short-lived supergroup called XYZ with Yes rhythm section Chris Squire and Alan White. For as odd a pairing as this seemed to be at the time, one wonders how the band failed to at least snare a record deal.

What label was going to "need to hear a demo first" before renting the longest stretch limo in town for the contract-signing ceremony of a new band featuring members of Yes and Zep?

Yet, when faced with the difficult task of deciding which of their managers was going to handle the new band, the project skidded to a compete halt and tumbled into some bushes, where it caught fire as all participants abandoned the vehicle.

To my reasonably-developed schoolyard bullshit detector, XYZ always seemed like one of those rumors that was too well-conceived to be true. For starters, the name was too clever by far that it just had to be the creation of some pimply-faced kid whose addiction to Roger Dean gatefold sleeves had begun to blur his conception of reality.