Led Zeppelin rehearsed in secret before deciding to stage a one-off reunion gig, to make sure that the chemistry would still work, the legendary band's guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday.
Page also refused to say whether the band -- which released a greatest hits album at the weekend -- will play any more shows after the highly-anticipated December 10 concert in London.
The band members, who split in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham, had trouble keeping their rehearsal plans secret -- but when they met up the decision was not difficult to take, he said.
"The hardest thing of having anything to do with Led Zeppelin is getting together and rehearsing without anybody finding out about it," he said in an interview with the BBC.
"We wanted to see how well we'd be playing together and once we played it was without doubt we wanted to do it," he added.
Lead singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones, with Bonham's son Jason on drums, will headline the gig, which was delayed from this month after Page injured a finger.
More than one million fans applied for the 20,000 tickets for the reunion gig, a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the late founder of the Atlantic Records label, who signed the group in 1968.
"We were pretty confident it would sell out on the first day but the demand was totally overwhelming," said Page. "I don't think anyone expected that demand in their wildest dreams."
Page refused to be drawn on whether Led Zeppelin could play more shows after next month's gig at the O2, formerly known as the Millennium Dome, saying that for the moment they were concentrating solely on that concert.
"At the moment the target is the O2 and that's all we have our sights on, firmly.... Let's see how we get on with the O2," he said.
Led Zeppelin have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide and the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Led Zeppelin's "best of" album, Mothership, entered the album chart at number four at the weekend.LONDON (AFP)
