The Gods of Rock are back

Led Zeppelin once dubbed the loudest band on the planet, demonstrated to the five generations of fans that filled the 20,000 capacity 02 Stadium tonight just how exciting, raw and jaw-droppingly heavy rock music can be.

From opener Good Times, Bad Times and through early sluggers like Ramble On and Black Dog, Jimmy Page’s Gibson guitar roared and wailed driven by John Paul Jones’ thunderous bass lines and Jason Bonham’s near-perfect facsimile of his father John’s drumming.

For a man in his early sixties, singer Robert Plant couldn’t quite hit the ear-shredding notes of yore, and his timing was a little out during the terrifying sonic rampage of Thirties blues update of In My Time of Dying, but with the Messerschmitt-like noise coming from rock’s finest rhythm section that just didn’t matter.

It was a deep ominous noise that filled the hangar-like O2, a noise that nobody else has never quite managed to reproduce. This intensity reached a peak during Dazed and Confused, with an ancient sounding, and taking the psychedelic experiments of late sixties rock to the limits.

Stairway to Heaven and Since I’ve Been Loving You provided  soulful relief of sorts but the former eventually accelerated into flat-out rock and the latter’s downbeat start is laced with sledgehammer blues breaks that catch the listener unawares.

The Eastern throb of Kashmir, possibly the band’s most celebrated track ended the proceedings, and it was clear Led Zeppelin were going for the jugular tonight - no folky material, no acoustic guitars, as the merciless encore Whole Lot Of Love proved.

The concert was a tribute to Atlantic Records founder, the late Ahmet Ertegun and cash-raiser for his education fund, and the intensity from start to finish only proved Led Zeppelin’s love of this man who was so much a part of the band’s amazing success story.

Ticket prices spiralled into the thousands for this event with one chap paying 83,000. crazy possibly, but for a once-in-a-lifetime experience like this, perhaps not.