Robert Plant has performed ‘Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin for the first time in 23 years.
The iconic rock group’s frontman played a rendition of the 1970 track from their third studio album at Secret Solstice festival in Reykjavik, Iceland, the place that inspired the lyrics.
After the performance, Plant said: “Thank you culture, way back, for the inspiration.”
Robert Plant last performed the number in February 1996, on tour with his bandmate Jimmy Page.
‘Immigrant Song’ was inspired by their show in Reykjavik, which got cancelled due to strikes and saw students offer them their university concert hall to perform at instead, and the 70-year-old musician says the track was “intended to be incredibly different”.
He explained previously: “We were invited to play a concert in Reykjavik and the day before we arrived all the civil servants went on strike and the gig was going to be cancelled.
“The university prepared a concert hall for us and it was phenomenal.
“The response from the kids was remarkable and we had a great time.
“‘Immigrant Song’ was about that trip and it was the opening track on the album that was intended to be incredibly different.”
Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that a new documentary on Led Zeppelin is in the works.
The as-yet-untitled project is in post production, and traces the journeys of the four members – Plant, Page, John Paul Jones, and the late John Bonham – through the music scene of the 1960s, their meeting in the summer of 1968 for a rehearsal that will change the future of rock, and culminates in 1970 when their second album knocks The Beatles off the top of the charts.
The film has been directed by Bernard MacMahon – who helmed the 2017 music documentary ‘American Epic’ – and celebrates the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ hitmakers on their 50th anniversary.
Page said: “When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is ‘American Epic’, I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”
Whilst Plant added: “Seeing Will Shade, and so many other important early American musicians, brought to life on the big screen in ‘American Epic’ inspired me to contribute to a very interesting and exciting story.”
And Jones said: “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring that story to life.”
The documentary features brand new interviews of the three surviving members, as well as, rare archival interviews with the late Bonham, and never-before-seen archive film and photographs.
The film will be the first Led Zeppelin story told through the words of the members themselves, and is the first and only time the band have participated in a documentary in their 50-year career.
As of the time of writing, the film is yet to have a firm release date.
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