When Ian Astbury of The Cult told a live audience back in November that "The Cult will be back next year . . . We'll be opening for a band you may have heard of: the name starts with an L and has a Z in it," everyone presumed that details of the much-mooted Led Zeppelin 2008 reunion tour had been leaked a month ahead of schedule.

The received wisdom was that the day after the band's triumphant 02 Arena gig in December, a whole string of Led Zep dates would be rolled out.

The touts quickly moved in, advertising tickets for gigs in venues in different countries. Some idiot even confidently predicted that the band would play Slane Castle next August. (That was me!) It all seemed to be a done deal.

We do know that Zep were offered telephone number-sized financial inducements to tour the world and that three of the four were ready-steady-go, but that one was holding out. It wasn't

so much that Robert Plant was dragging his feet. It's just that his Raising Sand album collaboration with Alison Krauss had become one of 2007's musical highlights. It was always his intention to tour the album; the 02 gig, for Plant at least, was a one-off.

Somewhere, though, Plant's message got lost in translation in the media cacophony surrounding the reunion show. So, when a Raising Sand tour for 2008 was announced instead of a Led Zep one, there was a palpable sense of surprise. The Plant/Krauss tour begins in the UK in May and then moves on to the US.

Robert Plant's decision was understandable and predictable: he has always been the least reunion-friendly member of the band and is reluctant to restage those live, two-to-three-hour Zep marathon concerts that brutalise his vocal cords. Touring with Krauss provides him with a co-vocalist as well as material that won't leave him hoarse for a week after each show. Perhaps more importantly, Plant is always happier doing new material than going through a vintage back catalogue.

The response from Led Zeppelin fans was neither understandable nor predictable. First came the ludicrous suggestion that if Plant was so insistent on touring with Krauss, why couldn't the duo be the support act for Led Zeppelin. Then it turned nasty: on one fan message board, Krauss was hysterically referred to as Yoko Ono - ie, the person responsible for keeping the band apart. The Led Zeppelin fundamentalist fan was born.

Things can get very heated on these message boards. Then again, these are probably the same people putting in bids on eBay for used ticket stubs and wristbands from the 02 Arena gig so that they can pretend they were actually there.

Away from the fevered fan ramblings, a clearer picture emerges of the band's real plans. It would not come as a huge surprise if Zep did play one or two shows this year, and the most likely venues are Glastonbury and Madison Square Gardens. The band are keen to revisit the latter, where they filmed their famous The Song Remains the Same concert documentary.

If all goes according to plan (and Alison "Yoko" Krauss doesn't entice Plant into doing a follow-up to Raising Sand), the general idea is for Zep to record a new album at the end of 2008 and then do the full global thing in 2009.

You read it here first: Led Zeppelin for Slane 2009.