Led Zeppelin at the O2

According to the NME, Led Zeppelin are not going to tour despite obscene amounts of money being thrown at them from all directions. I'm kinda happy they're not, really, as I've always enjoyed Percy Plant's solo career and preferred the 'Unledded' set he did with Jimmy Page to much of the more bombastic Zeppelin stuff. Everyone wants the bombastic Zeppelin back, and whilst this is no bad thing, I feel the recent 'Mothership' best-of set was a let down as it concentrated more on this side than on the more acoustic, progressive and bluesy side. It creates such an expectation that if they went out and reimagined a lot of the songs as they did with the unplugged thing (and to a lesser extent with the subsequent Page and Plant tour - which was one of my Top 10 Point Depot gigs and the only time I've fainted at a concert) they'd be bottled off the stage. Well, maybe not, but there'd be a lot of shuffling of feet to the bar.

According to the NME: "Led Zeppelin will not play live again together, according to a source close to the band’s singer, Robert Plant.The Sunday Mirror newspaper quotes an anonymous source as saying that the band have turned down a £100 million offer to tour, with Plant’s own non-Led Zeppelin musical plans the reason for the decision.The newspaper quotes the source as saying: “Despite the enormous offer, the decision did not come down to money. They always said they would do the one-off show and then see how they felt.“Jimmy [Page, guitarist] enjoyed the concert in December enough to want to tour. He argued they still had something to offer. He likes the idea of another chapter in the band – the grown-up tour. “John [Paul Jones, bassist] sided with Jimmy. He loved making music with the others again. But Robert [Plant] wanted to leave last year's concert as their legacy. They had proved they could still do it and that was enough.“He has other commitments and is happier looking forward to those. Robert put the mockers on the tour.”

So now. Saying all that I would have loved to have been at the O2 show, especially just to see/hear what Jason Bonham was like behind the kit. The last place I'd seen him was in some awful reality TV metal show with Ted Nugent, Scott Ian from Anthrax, that Bach twat from Skid Row who won't say what Jon Bon Jovi really did to him and some dude from Biohazard with a serious porn problem so he had a lot of making up to do. Although I think he faked an injury to get out of that particular show...

I've heard a few bootlegs of it to date but this one is probably the best I've found. Again, it's from that mighty source of live sets, Big O. The best live review of that show was a gorgeous piece from Mark Ellen in The Word, perhaps the only review to give Bonham Jr a bit of credit.