LONDON -- For Led Zeppelin fans, Celebration Day has finally arrived.
Tonight's the night that the legendary British blues-metal gods reunite for their first full concert in more than 27 years -- and for the lucky few Canadians who are here in England to take in the one-off show, it's a fantasy come true.
"Oh yeah, this is definitely one of my childhood dreams," said Larry Norton of Halifax as he waited in line yesterday to pick up his wristband ticket at the O2 Arena box office.
Like more than a million others, the 48-year-old Norton -- a systems analyst with the Fisheries and Oceans Department -- entered an online lottery back in October in hopes of scoring one of 9,000 pairs of tickets to the concert. Unlike 99% of his competitors, he won.
"I heard back within a few hours. I was shocked, to say the least."
That goes for Scott Smith of High River, Alta.
"I didn't even enter the lottery," the 47-year-old oil worker confesses. "I didn't even think it was possible. But my buddy entered and he won. I was pretty thrilled when he told me."
Smith and Norton were among thousands of winners from 70 countries who swamped the Greenwich venue yesterday, waiting in long lines amid tight security for more than five hours to claim the prized wristbands, which sold for #125 each, about $250 Cdn.
To thwart scalpers, winners had to present photo ID, the credit card they used to buy their tickets, and the confirmation code they were issued in order to claim the wristbands, which cannot be removed before showtime.
Of course, that hasn't stopped people from selling "tickets" on eBay for thousands of dollars. Whether some of those buyers will be disappointed tonight remains to be seen. But for promoters, the cash registers are ringing. Inside the O2 lobby, vendors were already selling #15 programs to the event at a steady clip.
"I've been here since 10 a.m. and it's just been like this all day," said one merchant, pocketing cash and handing over programs virtually nonstop. "I've never seen anything like this."
Indeed. The three surviving members of Zeppelin -- guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist John Paul Jones -- have not played a full show together since drummer John Bonham drank himself to death one night in 1980.
For tonight's gig -- a fundraising tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, who signed Zep back in the '60s -- Bonham's 41-year-old son Jason will be behind the kit. An all-star band led by former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and featuring guest appearances by Foreigner, Paul Rodgers, Paolo Nutini and more will open the show.
But all eyes will be on 59-year-old Plant and 63-year-old Page. Fans wonder whether the former can still hit the caterwauling notes of his youth, and whether the latter can pull off the guitar pyrotechnics of old -- especially since he fractured his left pinkie finger, delaying the concert by two weeks. And of course, they wonder if this will be one last blowout or the christening of a relaunched Zep.
Plant -- who has previously expressed his reluctance to regroup -- seemed to reverse his stance in an interview printed yesterday in a British paper.
"It wouldn't be such a bad idea to play together from time to time," he told the Sunday Times -- but then he added: "I don't think I said that. No. No. No. Somebody else inside me was saying that ... We're not having any more of that. It was great, but I've got to go down the highway now."
Either way, the fans we spoke to are just happy to be getting a second chance to catch the heroes of their youth.
"I've never seen them before," says Smith. "There's lots of songs I want them to play."
After all, he quipped: "It's been a long time since I rock 'n' rolled."
He's not alone.
