LONDON — After that performance, Led Zeppelin really must go on tour.
The reunited rock ‘n’ roll legends were superb Monday in their first full concert in nearly three decades, mixing in classics like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Black Dog” with the thumping “Kashmir” and the hard-rocking “Dazed and Confused.”
The band’s three surviving members — singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones — were joined by the late John Bonham’s son Jason on drums.
And it was the newest member of the band who was given the honor of kicking off the sold-out benefit show, pounding out the beat before the others joined in on a near-perfect “Good Times Bad Times.”
After the lights went down at the O2 Arena, newsreel footage of the band arriving in Tampa, Fla., for a 1973 performance was projected onstage. Then Bonham jumped in, soon to be joined by the rest.
They followed that with “Ramble On” and with it destroyed all rumors that the 59-year-old Plant could no longer reproduce his trademark wail.
With his button-down shirt mercifully buttoned up, Plant roamed the stage belting out hit after hit, rarely giving his critics anything to work with.
But Page showed he still has the touch as well. Besides ripping out his patented riffs all night, he put the spotlight on himself when the band played the bluesy “In My Time of Dying.”
With his left hand moving freely up and down the neck of his guitar and the metal slide wrapped around one of his fingers, Page effortlessly played a song that’s not easy to master.
Page and Plant later combined to open “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” a song that starts with another classic Page riff and then gets help from Plant mimicking the same sounds.
Still, it was Bonham who may have been the star of the show. At 41, he is older than his father was — 32 — when he choked to death on his own vomit in 1980.
Bonham’s flawless performance and driving beat even made the other members of the band watch in awe at the end of “Black Dog.”
After “The Song Remains the Same,” Plant screamed: “Jason Bonham, drums! Come on!”
The 16-song set list produced few surprises.
The band performed many of the songs that were expected, such as “No Quarter” and “Trampled Under Foot,” and the entire show lasted a bit more than two hours, mainly because of encores “Whole Lotta Love” and “Rock and Roll.” The band also played “For Your Life” live for the first time.
The show was Led Zeppelin’s first full set since 1980. Robbed of John “Bonzo” Bonham’s pulsing drums, the band decided it couldn’t go on and split up Dec. 4, 1980.
Tickets for the show, a benefit for the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, were won in an Internet lottery.
