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Did that really happen? Pandora and Peter at the Zeppelin Gig
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 If I have to blag my way in to Heaven, bearing in mind that I'm not going to get there on merit, I'm taking Pandora along to sweet talk the door attendants.
Mon 10th mid afternoon, she rings me. There is access to the media room at the 02 stadium for the Zeppelin event and she can, just about, get me on the guest list.
We won't see the concert, but at least we can say we were there and, since there will surely be a Plasma TV screen, we can watch the action remotely and report on it. I head for Greenwich.
The Dome is an unremarkable structure externally, but inside is a city within a city where, like in a Sci Fi movie, the privileged lead an alternative life of restaurants, exhibitions and cinemas, laid out in a massive circle around the 02 Stadium.
At the Media Desk, all is not well. Sweet little things called Lulu and Suki agonise that Anna has invited 120 journalists but Justin has only supplied 50 ID passes. They strut back and forth, walkie talkies hung from their belts, bouncing off their pert behinds, as scruffy jaundiced journo's shuffle and grumble. Lulu scrounges me a wrist band.
The Media room is a breeze block, windowless prison. At rows of tables are endless reporters, tinkering with endless lap-tops. They are not happy since there is no hospitality, and in the corner sits just one domestic TV, showing shots within the arena, but with so much mains hum that the audio is unintelligible. TV crews, weighed down with camera gear, sit disconsolately.
A notice indicates that anyone pointing a camera at the TV will be ejected.
Rupert flounces in wearing the obligatory head phones and microphone, asking who wants to interview the band Foreigner. Nobody moves. Rupert shrugs and flounces out. The TV stops working.
 The mood is belligerent, and I am fostering discontent where I can. Pandora is using the unrest to gain advantage. The PR girls devise a compromise.
Within the stadium is a media cage where, in order to say they were actually there, batches of us will be allowed to watch the band for five minutes each. This hallowed place is somewhere behind a door, guarded by a huge and menacing guy. Pandora reckons that near this door is the place for us to stand.
Oh Joy! the huge guy overhears us talking and, in a coincidence that can scarcely be credible, his other job is to be Security for the Caroline Road Show in Lowestoft. Now we have a friend.
In a classic piece of bad timing I visit the loo, when I return Pandora is distressed, a small bunch of journo's have been escorted through for their five min's and we missed our chance. The big guy indicates us to wait but returns and lets us through in to the charge of another minder. At some point our minder melts away and we walk in to the arena unescorted.
Five minutes? we don't bloody think so, we blend into the crowd and hide.
The arena is a massive oval, curving banks of seats rise up and up, solid, jam packed, with besotted public. The volume is astonishing, my chest is compressed in time with the drum beats and I remember that this is not good for a guy with heart problems, but then, if I have to keel over, why not do so having gate crashed a Zeppelin gig.
Massive back projections compensate for the fact that Zeppelin on stage are tiny figures. The screens show that Robert Plant has changed from a smooth skinned, bare chested Rock God to a haggard T- shirted Rock God, but a God none the less. The range of his soaring vocals is unaltered. Age has not wearied him, the years have not condemned.
The screens are perhaps less kind to Jimmy Page especially when he looks down with furrowed concentration at his guitar. But when he plays, who cares about the jowls and the wispy white hair.
Pandora by now is transported to a happy place and I decide to leave her there. Looking at the crowd I wonder if they would be tolerant if the performance was
mediocre, probably so, but the question does not arise.
Perhaps a little time passed as the band got in to their stride. "Good Times Bad Times", "Ramble On", "Black Dog", but soon the confidential smiles from one band member to another showed that they knew they had cracked it. In the event that it looked like going even a little astray, the unerring drumming of bald giant Jason Bonham, son of the original John Bonham maintained the discipline as did the Bass and Keyboards of unsung hero John Paul Jones.
 The audience screamed or even howled for Page and Plant and when they swung in to "Dazed And Confused", ecstasy, and not the chemical kind, engulfed the arena. Then, what can I say other than that I've heard "Stairway To Heaven", performed live, followed by "Kashmir".
"How will they encore"' asked Pandora, or rather she signed and mouthed the comment since we were both deaf. She thought that all the standards had been played but had forgotten "Whole Lotta Love".
Page was contained in a turret of crackling green lasers that ranged also around the arena. The effects were fabulous but would not have worked without the music. Finally, the bonus encore of Rock And Roll.
We stumble back to the Media area to thank our saviour the doorman. Inside the media dungeon, assembled hacks and my old friend Tommy Rivers, now reporting for A.B.C, are filing their copy and speaking their reports, they are mostly waxing lyrical about the concert, but they weren't actually there.
They weren't deafened and battered by the volume, they didn't feel the adulation of 20,000 ecstatic people, see the subtle interaction of the band or the smoke and the lights and the lasers. We did, and how good is that?
A good friend of mine bought her ticket and flew in from New Zealand to attend. I did not spot her in the crowd but that is hardly surprising. I am looking forward to casually displaying my cherished wrist band.
Perhaps or in fact probably, nothing like this will happen again, but I got to see it and for free and what's more I travelled to and fro on an old persons travel card and yes, I am that old person, but right now, who cares.
Thank O2 and thanks Outside Organisation PR. Thank you Zeppelin and hail Pandora, Queen of the blaggers.
Peter Moore.
11th Dec 07
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