Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi invited Robert Plant to be part of Back to the Beginning, the final show for Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne on July 5th in Birmingham, England, but Plant graciously declined.
He tells Mojo magazine, “I said, Tony, I’d love to come, but I can’t come. I just can’t. I’m not saying that I’d rather hang out with Peter Gabriel or Youssou N’Dour, but I don’t know anything about what’s going on in that world now, at all. I don’t decry it, I’ve got nothing against it. It’s just I found these other places that are so rich.”
And those places are why he's will also shying away from playing some of Led Zeppelin's better known songs on his tour with Saving Grace.
“What were the hits?," he asks? "How can they be related to now, where do they fit? They fit as a sort of memoir. When people say that I don’t like ‘Stairway To Heaven,’ I just don’t like the idea of it. These iconic things – they’re just what they are.
“But you know, most people have missed some of the best Zeppelin stuff. ‘For Your Life’ on Presence. ‘Achilles Last Stand!’ ... Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that.”
The Zeppelin songs he's been playing on this tour are "Ramble On," "Four Sticks," "Friends," "The Rain Song," "Gallows Pole" and "Black Dog."
Plant and Saving Grace start their U.S. tour on October 30th in Wheeling, West Virginia in support of their self-titled debut album, which will be out on September 26th.
In Zeppelin news, they've released a visualizer video for "Houses of the Holy" from the 50th anniversary of Physical Graffiti, which will be out on September 12th.