In February 2021, Uproxx’s Steven Hyden ranked Led Zeppelin’s 50 best songs, and “Stairway To Heaven” came in at No. 4. For those wondering why it wasn’t No. 1, Hyden explained, “It’s so epic and sweeping and beloved and overplayed and seriously it’s way overplayed but it’s still awesome and here comes that guitar solo sweet Jesus but man the overexposure eventually embarrassed Robert Plant so much that he couldn’t sing it with a straight face.”
As per NME, Plant performed “Stairway To Heaven” live for the first time since doing so at London’sThe O2 in 2007. On Saturday (October 21), Plant was back in the UK at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire for An Evening With Andy Taylor And Special Guests benefitting Cancer Awareness Trust. Attendees posted Instagram and YouTube snippets of Plant singing the fifth verse of “Stairway To Heaven.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyrdO8JM_iT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The charity concert organized by Duran Duran’s Taylor, who was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in 2018 (as per Billboard), also included Ella Henderson, Wham!’s Andrew Ridgeley, Pink Floyd’s Guy Pratt, David Palmer, and Katherine Ryan.
“Stairway To Heaven” is housed on the band’s 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV, the same year Led Zeppelin performed “Stairway To Heaven” for the first-ever time at Ulster Hall in Belfast, Ireland.
Belfast Telegraph‘s Gerry Fitzgerald was in attendance and reflected on it in 2007, writing, “That night in the Ulster Hall was the first public performance of Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven,’ and we didn’t like it. Too ‘ballady’ for Led Zeppelin was our thoughts. It didn’t really sound like them — at least not until the last minute of the song when Jimmy Page launched into that now famous guitar riff. ‘Stairway To Heaven’ went on to become one of the all time rock classics that has stood the test of time — sure what do I know about music anyway!”
