Watch Robert Plant sing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ for first time in 16 years
Robert Plant has performed the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Stairway To Heaven’ live for the first time since 2007. Find footage of the moment below.
- READ MORE: Led Zeppelin – rank the albums
The solo artist and former Led Zeppelin frontman revisited the iconic 1971 track – taken from the band’s ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ album – during a charity concert on Saturday night (October 21).
Held for The Cancer Platform, the live show was developed by the Cancer Awareness Trust and organised by former Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor. It took place at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire and featured appearances from other famous faces including Ella Henderson, Andrew Ridgeley of Wham!, former Pink Floyd bassist Guy Pratt, comedian Katherine Ryan and renowned drummer David Palmer.
One of the main highlights of the night – dubbed An Evening With Andy Taylor And Special Guests – arose with a performance from Plant, who broke out Led Zeppelin tracks ‘Thank You’, ‘Black Dog’ and ‘Stairway To Heaven’. The latter marked his first time singing the track in 16 years.
The last time he sang the world-famous song in public was back in 2007 at London’s O2 Arena, later released as the Celebration Day concert film. Check out footage of the moment below.
The gig in Oxfordshire over the weekend wasn’t the first charity concert to be held in support of Cancer Awareness Trust. Back in August, the Duran Duran also held a one-off show at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park, California to raise funds for the charity.
Held in honour of Taylor – who left the band in 2006 and revealed his own diagnosis of prostate cancer last year – the gig raised money to fight against cancer and help develop special treatments that allow patients to extend their lives.
Earlier this year, Taylor revealed that he is now hoping to undergo ‘nuclear therapy’ – a newer type of treatment that has only recently arrived in the UK.
“Essentially it’s a nuclear medicine. It’s put into your body and it detects the cancer on the outside of the cells and it only hits cancer cells in your bones, which is mainly where it is with me, and zaps them. But if there’s a healthy cell next to it, it doesn’t touch it,” he explained at the time (via Daily Mail).
“So it’s not curative, but it can knock out and then it’s got to start again and from what was kind of – I’ll not even say the term they used to have on the thing – but I can get back [to] full fitness. I’ll be fine for five years.”
In other Robert Plant news, at the start of the year the singer revealed that it was the “positive energy” he saw in Phil Collins that was the “driving force” to get his solo career off the ground.
“After John [Bonham, Led Zeppelin drummer] passed away and there was no Led Zeppelin, there had to be a way to go. I floundered around a lot because until I was 32, I was in some kind of wild and absurd adventure,” he said.
“Phil Collins especially was a driving force and had positive energy with the first record… Then he came on tour with me and basically said, ‘Robert, the guy that sat behind you for all those years was my hero’. That was it. He said, ‘Anything I can do to help you to get back into fighting shape again, I’m here.'”
The post Watch Robert Plant sing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ for first time in 16 years appeared first on NME.
Liberty Dunworth
NME
