Three days after Live Aid, the high had settled into a strange kind of quiet. The kind that lingers after something seismic, when everyone's still replaying it in their heads but doesn't quite know what to do with the feeling yet.
Rory Callahan sat on the edge of his hotel bed in Philadelphia, swinging his legs. The room still smelled faintly like stage sweat and hairspray from the night before. His drumsticks rested on the nightstand, crosswise, like relics. He kept glancing at them without meaning to. Every time he blinked, he could still see Page's Les Paul glinting under the lights, Plant's curls bouncing as he howled, Jones's calm hands locking the low end together—and himself, right in the middle of it all.
He wasn't sure if it really happened.
When the knock came at the door, his mom opened it. "Rory," she said softly, "they're here."
Standing in the hallway were Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones—all looking oddly normal in jeans and jackets, but still carrying that aura that made them look larger than the corridor around them.
Page smiled faintly, that sly, tired smile that always looked like he knew three secrets no one else did. "Hey, lad," he said, adjusting his sunglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "We just wanted to say goodbye properly."
Plant stepped forward, all warmth and that effortless charisma that could light a stage even without a microphone. He tousled Rory's hair with a grin. "You know, mate, you scared the hell outta us for a second up there. We thought you were gonna come out stiff, polite little prodigy and all. But you—bloody hell, you played like a storm."
Rory grinned awkwardly. "Thanks. I just didn't wanna mess it up."
Plant chuckled. "Mess it up? You owned it. Bonzo would've been proud. You've got lightning in you, kid. Don't burn it all at once."
Jones, quieter but kind-eyed, stepped forward next. "You've got a rare ear," he said, simply. "You listened. That's what makes a musician, not just a player. Protect that."
Then Page leaned closer, dropping his voice a notch. "Keep your head, lad. There's power in what you did up there. Don't let anyone tell you what it means but you."
Rory just nodded, still trying to believe they were really standing there, talking to him like he belonged.
There were a few hugs—awkward, brief but real—and then they were gone. The elevator doors closed, and that was it. The gods returned to their own corners of the world.
The next morning, it began.
Every paper, every TV channel, every radio station from New York to London was talking about him.
"Twelve-Year-Old Drummer Revives Led Zeppelin."
"Seattle Prodigy Steals Live Aid Spotlight."
Photos from the performance were everywhere—Rory's hair flying, his arms a blur, his face focused in that same mix of awe and intensity you only saw on real players. Some people compared him to Bonham, some said he played like Bonham. Others said he wasn't trying to be anyone, and that's why it worked.
Rory didn't say a word.
He told his parents to turn down every call, every interview, every letter that came from managers and networks. "Please," he said one evening over dinner, "just let them talk. I don't wanna explain it. I just want to play."
His dad looked at him for a long time, fork frozen halfway to his mouth. His mom smiled softly, that half-proud, half-worried look she'd had since the show. "Alright, honey. We'll let them talk."
And they did.
Back home in Seattle, things tried to go back to normal, though nothing really felt normal anymore. A couple of news vans parked outside now and then, reporters calling out questions when the garage door opened. Neighbors stared longer than usual at the Callahans' house when they walked their dogs.
Rory just ignored it. He buried himself in the two things he knew how to handle—music and learning.
He'd always been different that way. His parents had figured out by the time he was eight that he processed stuff faster than most kids. While his classmates were learning multiplication, Rory was reading about physics and playing complex rhythms he picked up from records. His teachers didn't know what to do with him, so the school district moved him into a gifted program. By ten, he was taking high school level classes through an accelerated learning system—testing out of entire courses, spending summers doing remote coursework, even sitting in a few community college classes on weekends.
His mom sometimes joked, "You're going to graduate before you hit puberty."
And she was right. By April 1985, at just twelve years old, Rory had finished high school. He didn't go to prom. He didn't even attend a big ceremony. It was just a small event in the principal's office—his parents smiling proudly while a secretary handed him his diploma.
He didn't mind. He had other things to think about. Music mostly. Always music.
His parents didn't restrict him much after that. They figured he'd earned the freedom. So when he'd ask to fly to Germany to see one of Plant's solo shows, or to Philadelphia for Live Aid, they'd just exchange a glance and say yes. He wasn't spoiled—just curious. Driven. Like he was chasing something that had started beating inside him the moment he'd hit that first snare at Live Aid.
Five quiet days passed after the whirlwind of Live Aid. Fame rippled far away — in magazines, TV broadcasts, and late-night radio chatter — but in Seattle, things stayed calm. Rory Callahan was back in his element: behind the kit, in his family's garage, surrounded by the kind of noise that made sense to him.
The Callahan garage wasn't fancy — part drum room, part storage, with amps stacked beside old boxes and a stubborn oil stain that wouldn't fade no matter how often it was scrubbed. The air smelled of dust and metal, familiar and grounding. This was where he'd been jamming with Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic for over a year now — long before the Live Aid madness.
They weren't a band in the formal sense, not yet. More like three kids orbiting the same gravity — drawn together by sound, curiosity, and that restless energy that Seattle seemed to breed in its youth.
Rory pushed the garage door open, sunlight slicing through the dim. Kurt was already sprawled on an amp, guitar in hand, absentmindedly picking at a riff that sounded like it might fall apart but somehow didn't. Krist stood nearby, tuning his bass with that slow, careful focus he always had, his lanky frame almost folded in half by the low ceiling.
"'Bout time," Kurt said, glancing up with a crooked grin. "You ditch us for the rock legends now?"
Rory smirked, tossing his sticks onto the snare. "Nah. Just needed a breather. The old guys hit hard."
Krist laughed, the kind of easy, booming laugh that filled the space. "You were one of the old guys for a minute there, man. Whole damn world saw it."
Rory shrugged, sliding onto his stool. "Whole world'll forget next week."
Kurt shook his head, brushing his hair from his eyes. "Not if we make 'em remember."
That was the thing about Kurt — even when he said stuff like that, there was no ego in it. Just quiet conviction, like he saw something the others didn't yet.
Rory started tapping the hi-hat, loose and easy. "So what's the plan today? Something loud, or something that makes people feel weird?"
Kurt grinned. "Both."
Krist groaned. "Of course both."
Rory chuckled and started a beat — a rolling, off-kilter rhythm that came naturally now, muscle memory shaped by months of late-night sessions, arguments over tone, laughter that turned into riffs.
Kurt leaned in, guitar howling to life with that scratchy, unrefined sound that only he could pull off. It wasn't perfect — it was alive. Krist locked in right behind Rory's pulse, bass lines rumbling under the beat like a second heartbeat.
The three of them moved like parts of one strange, unpredictable machine. Rory shifted gears mid-bar, adding Bonham-weighted fills that made the air thicken with energy. Kurt's chords crashed and bent, half-melody, half-chaos, and Krist filled the spaces with that grounding hum that held it all together.
No crowd. No lights. Just raw noise bouncing off concrete walls and something in the air that felt like a beginning.
Between songs, they caught their breath, laughing over nothing — Kurt teasing Rory about being "the kid who saved Zeppelin," Rory firing back about Kurt's guitar being perpetually out of tune, Krist trying to referee and failing miserably.
But under it all, there was that quiet respect — that thing they never said out loud. They knew they were good. Not polished, not famous — just good. The kind of good that made time disappear.
Kurt leaned back against an amp, sweat clinging to his shirt, hair a tangled mess. "Y'know," he said, almost casually, "you play like you've already seen where all this ends up."
Rory paused, twirling a stick between his fingers. "Maybe I just listen harder than most."
Krist looked between them, smirking. "You both talk too damn cryptic."
Rory laughed and gave the snare a sharp crack. "Then shut up and play."
They dove into another riff — heavier, louder, something that sounded like it belonged in a basement and a revolution at the same time.
Kurt's voice tore through the noise — rough, honest, too young and too old all at once. Rory drove the rhythm harder, faster, heart syncing with every hit. Krist's bass roared in the background, relentless.
It wasn't Zeppelin. It wasn't anything that already existed. It was them — chaotic, electric, unrepeatable.
When the song finally fell apart in a blur of feedback and laughter, Kurt looked over, panting a little, eyes bright. "Yeah," he said, grinning. "That's the sound."
Rory grinned back. "Yeah. I think so too."
Krist wiped his forehead with his sleeve and muttered, "If anyone ever records this mess, I'm quitting."
They laughed, because that was how it always ended — with laughter, noise, and that invisible thread tying the three of them together.
Outside, the Seattle sky hung low and gray, but inside the garage, it was all heat and pulse and possibility. Rory leaned back, drumsticks balanced across his lap, staring at the two guys who, somehow, had become his closest friends.
They didn't know it yet — none of them did — but this was where the next wave would begin.
Not in Wembley.
Not in Philadelphia.
Here, in a half-forgotten garage with three kids chasing a sound that didn't exist yet.
Rory looked at Kurt and Krist, smirked, and raised a stick. "One more?"
Kurt grinned, eyes gleaming. "Always."
And just like that, the noise started again.