ROBERT PLANT Took Inspiration From PINK FLOYD For LED ZEPPELIN's Final Show

Robert Plant says that PINK FLOYD's "quick one-off" show at Live 8 in 2005 was an inspiration for LED ZEPPELIN's final concert two years later.

LED ZEPPELIN's December 10, 2007 performance during the Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert was chronicled on the band's 2012 "Celebration Day" CD and DVD. The set, which featured Jason Bonham subbing for his late father John Bonham on drums, marked Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones's first full-scale show together since John Bonham's 1980 death.

Speaking in the "My Guide To Life" feature in Issue 14 of Planet Rock magazine, Plant explained that ZEPPELIN's O2 concert had parallels to the last time David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright took the stage together.

"I liked what FLOYD did at Live 8 — a quick one-off and let's leave it at that. They did it for a good cause," Plant said. "It's was the same when ZEPPELIN did the charity show for Ahmet. We had a prolonged affinity with Ahmet, so if there was ever a reason for [a reunion] to happen, that was it. But the idea of doing it next summer and the summer after that and so on is enough to break me out in hives."

Two years ago, Plant told Rolling Stone magazine that the 2007 concert "was magnificent. We hit a home run that night, which is something that we were really fearful of. There was probably more riding on that than we would care to believe.

"Our performance was crucial, but we could reproduce sound in a much more reliable way, so we could be kickass, and sound kickass," he added. "Some of those horrific gigs way back were lacking in quality."

After the the O2 Arena concert, Page and Jones were looking for a way to keep working and tried out several singers, including AEROSMITH's Steven Tyler and ALTER BRIDGE's Myles Kennedy.

The option for a three-quarter ZEPPELIN reunion ended when Jones accepted an offer to form THEM CROOKED VULTURES with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme. Page later said: "I guess that was a pretty definitive statement."

Page said "the LED ZEPPELIN question" is never far from people's lips, joking, "People ask me nearly every day about a possible reunion. The answer is 'no.' It's been [more than a decade] since the O2. There's always a possibility that they can exhume me and put me onstage in a coffin and play a tape."