When Led Zeppelin staged their first London engagement at the O2 Arena in over three decades in 2007, it was one of their biggest performances. With 20 million individuals vying for the 20,000 golden tickets up for grabs, the event became so popular that it was officially recognized as having the “Highest Demand for Tickets for One Music Concert” by Guinness World Records in 2009.
Five years after the concert, Jimmy Page sat down with Lori Spencer and they watched the program together. They not only reminisced about the show, but he also discussed his feelings over Roger Daltrey’s offer to take Robert Plant’s position on The Who.
The Rumors About Plant Being Replaced
On December 10, the band performed a final set of 16 songs, including two encores, on stage. However, there had been some rumors before the presentation. It seems that a few fans believed Robert Plant would be replaced by a different vocalist Led Zeppelin. In the 2012 interview, Page provided clarification on the speculations by saying the following:
“Well, look: If we’d have eventually settled on a singer, I don’t think that would have been a good idea to have done that prematurely. Of course, we would have played Led Zeppelin material. But I don’t know, it’s all hypothetical. But, you know, you want to be playing some really, really, really good new material to knock people’s socks off.”
The Misunderstanding Of Daltrey’s Role
After the talk, the presenter told Page about a rumor that suggested Daltrey may take Plant’s position. After Page said he was confused since he had not heard of the reports, Daltrey said he would want to work with Page. It appears that the conversation was held for a different reason that was misinterpreted. He clarified:
“Well, we had discussed it. But for the Teenager Cancer Trust, yeah. Yeah, and I said: ‘You know, I’d love to do that with you, Roger,’ but certainly, at the time I was saying that I thought I was already going to be out there playing, you know what I mean? But although everything I’d been doing is something that’s musical, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s playing the guitar, do you see what I mean?”
Plant said the following in response to a question on his collaborations with other musicians, notably Daltrey:
“Like, you can imagine with all of this, this relative to the O2, and there’s some other things that are going on. Like the sort of re-mastering of the catalog and this sort of stuff. It’s all stuff that is highly musical, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you could sit there and play the guitar at the same time. So I’m going to be working with musicians I sincerely hope by… well, into next year. And then hopefully surface by the end of that year.”