A COUPLE of weeks ago, rumours abounded in the international press that Robert Plant, former frontman of behemoth rock band Led Zeppelin, turned down £500million to reconvene with his former comrades for a monster tour.

And although these rumours were denied by the golden-maned legend’s publicist as "rubbish", seeing him play with his current band, The Sensational Space Shifters, you could almost understand why he might have turned the offer down had it ever been made.

There’s a relaxed joy of playing together and mutual appreciation between The Sensational Space Shifters, and it is obvious that Plant is very happy moving his music forward and is generous in sharing the stage and limelight with the five other members of this talented and tight-knit outfit.

Plant’s self-depreciating humour shone through, from a comment about being on a Saga bus trip to the fact that the band could last the gig to "go to the potty", and it was hard to imagine that this very ‘real’ fella having a laugh with us was the strutting ‘Percy’ of Zep infamy.

The band held the audience in the packed, sold-out venue in their collective hand from the opening note to the closing applause, taking us on a musical journey to all points of the globe, from Wolverhampton to the Appalachian Mountains, and from the past right up to the minute.

We heard gorgeously arranged versions of blues standards such as Little Maggie, which features on their new album, Lullaby… And The Ceaseless Roar, sitting alongside newer compositions from this collection, including the single Rainbow and Turn It Up. There were beautifully reworked versions of Zep classics too, such as Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, California, and a bluesy mash up of Whole Lotta Love and Hey Mona.

By the time the final chord of Rock And Roll rang out, the band and the audience were as one. There’s no looking back for The Sensational Space Shifters; the limelight is theirs for the taking, now and for the future.

- Natalya Wilson