No, they did not play “Stairway to Heaven.” Americans will just have to pick a new theme for proms. And now that the most asked question is out of the way . . .

Fade to black. Four candles lit up the stage just about the same time the audience lit up. With the thunder of the guitar and a burst of light, the pulsating beat of “The Song Remains the Same,” among other things, filled the air. A twist of calculated irony, perhaps, for the songs were clearly not the same.

“It’s nice to be back here, but I don’t think we’ve ever been,” Robert Plant said to the anxious Hilton crowd that had come to see the legends of rock, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, reunite and get the lead out. “So we’ll just say it’s nice to be.” But how can the voice and the guitar of Led Zeppelin ever “just be?”

Clad in all black and looking svelte and muscular to boot, Plant hadn’t lost one note of his shrills, screams and wails to the years. Looking hauntingly close to the young man who shimmied his way across the stage in The Song Remains the Same, Plant could still stagger and swagger, never losing a beat.

Not one to let the singing half steal the show, Page’s skillful mastery of the guitar was shown on four huge screens for all to gaze at in wonderment. Plucking everything from a mandolin to a double-decker, Page proved just why he is undisputedly the finest guitarist alive today.

Accompanied by the Ames Symphony Orchestra and their traveling band of merry men The Egyptian Pharaohs, the familiar songs of Led Zeppelin met with a blend of Arabic and Indian sounds.

Ever the theatrical showmen, the screens also carried the audience on a journey through the English countryside when not displaying the magic taking place on stage.

Slower tunes such as “Going to California” and “That’s the Way” took on an intimate flair, if there can be such a thing in Hilton, when other band members left and Page and Plant met with stools on center stage.

Highlights of such a monumental partnership were never slight throughout the whole performance. A simple nod or gesture to the adoring fans brought thunderous applause as all felt they were seeing history in the making.

For what was probably the longest version of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” everyone on stage was allowed the spotlight and even some ghosts were resurrected when The Doors’ “Break On Through” was intertwined among the medley.

To reinforce the theme of transcending cultures, Plant welcomed all to the tribe, and East met West in a wandering journey that became “Kashmir,” which rounded out Ames’ night of earth-shattering music. For all who were there, the hammer of the gods won’t soon be forgotten.