Tag Archives: Robert Plant

Live review: Saving Grace with Robert Plant & Suzi Dian, White Rock Theatre, Hastings 23/3/24

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Like many regional theatres in the UK, the events programme for the White Rock In Hastings has been the typical mix of touring tribute shows, musicals and panto with the odd stand-out musical gem thrown. Recently, the theatre saw a change in operator with Trafalgar Theatres (who run many similar venues across the UK), giving way to the Guildhall Trust. The latter are a charity that operate the Portsmouth Guildhall and they came in promising “exciting times ahead” and a “broader programme of entertainment” for the White Rock. Certainly, having Robert Plant on stage sets high bar and is hopefully a foretaste of what’s to come once the new team get their feet well and truly under the table.

In the decades since Led Zeppelin’s demise, Plant has had a consistently fascinating career and some fascinating and highly inventive musical collaborations. I remember braving the mud to witness him with Strange Sensation at Green Man festival in 2007 and, more recently, his superb set with Alison Krauss at Hyde Park when they supported the Eagles two years ago.

His latest band is Saving Grace, composed of Plant, alongside Suzi Dian (vocals), Oli Jefferson (percussion), Tony Kelsey (mandolin, baritone, acoustic guitar), and Matt Worley (banjo, acoustic, baritone guitars, cuatro) have been around for five years now with several UK tours behind them. Somewhat rockier than previous projects they are a perfect amalgam of Plant’s long-standing interests in the realms of hard-rock, traditional folk, bluegrass and blues, offering up a compelling mix of rocked-up interpretations of traditional songs and folkified versions of Led Zep classics.

Again, we see him returning to the male/female duet set-up, that worked so spectacularly when Sandy Denny was recruited to provide co-lead vocals for ‘Battle Of Evermore’ on Led Zeppelin IV back in the day and more recently through the work with Alison Krauss. It’s a format that Plant is clearly comfortable with and this latest pairing is equally well-chosen. Whether she’s harmonising or taking the lead, Suzi Dian’s rich but delicate voice is just the perfect fit alongside Plant’s still instantly-recognisable vocal (albeit with a more restrained delivery these days…) The band behind them deliver powerful and at times almost almost hypnotic rhythms, with Tony Kelsey and Matt Worley working their way through a plethora of stringed instruments, both electric and acoustic, alongside Oli Jefferson’s pounding percussion. The effect is simply mesmerising with every song drawing you in completely.

Of all the ‘70s rock gods, Robert Plant is perhaps the one who has most has steadfastly refused to be pigeon-holed in the superannuated, stadium heritage rock act persona. It’s meant he’s continued to surprise and delight with new musical ventures. And it’s meant I could stroll along up the road to see him and his band perform an intimate gig in my local theatre.

https://www.robertplant.com

Set-list:

Gospel Plow

The Cuckoo

Let the Four Winds Blow

Friends

Is That You

Too Far From You

Everybody’s Song

I Never Will Marry

The Rain Song

As I Roved Out

It Don’t Bother Me

Four Sticks

Angel Dance

Gallows Pole

And We Bid You Goodnight

Related posts:

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at Hyde Park 2022

“We were never about making the same album twice” – Led Zeppelin III: 50th anniversary interviews

July 2012: The night Jimmy Page asked if he could hang out with me

Live review: the Eagles at Hyde Park 26/6/22

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , ,

My first BST Hyde Park festival since Blur in 2015, and I’ve not just got one this year, but two. First the Eagles then the Rolling Stones a week later.

Having long been on my bucket-list of must-see artists, I’d somehow managed to avoid seeing the Eagles until now so today was always going to be really special. It was made even more special by the early evening support slot from none other than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. It’s a superb fit as their lush bluegrass-soaked Americana perfectly complements the laid-back, west coast, country rock of the headliners. Giving us a selection of tracks from their stunning 2007 Raising Sand album and its recent follow-up, Raise The Roof, the pair also manage to chuck in a couple of Zep covers, too – ‘Rock and Roll’ and a majestic version of ‘The Battle of Evermore’, originally a duet between Plant and Sandy Denny.

The sun continued to shine and the Eagles took to the stage on a lovely warm summer evening in Hyde Park. If there’s one band you don’t want to see performing against a backdrop of typically unreliable British weather, it’s got to be the Eagles. But everything is on their side tonight.

Following the sad passing of Glenn Frey back in 2016, the Eagles these days are Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and new boy, Vince Gill. It’s a masterclass of a performance and the classics just keep rolling: ‘One Of These Nights’, ‘Witchy Woman’, Take It To The Limit’, Lyin’ Eyes’, They just keep coming.

Glenn Frey’s son, Deacon, who was officially part of the line-up for a time following his father’s death, joins as a special guest for a couple of songs, including a stunning ‘Take It Easy’.

Ever the rock star, and never one to really go for the regulation, trade-mark, laid-back Eagles  persona, Joe Walsh brings his flamboyance to the performance and gets to do a couple of his solo numbers, too. He’s still in fine voice and his guitar-playing is just a delight. Drummer and founder, Don Henley, also gives us one of his solo numbers, dedicating ‘The Boys of Summer’ to Taylor Hawkins.

Those Eagles classics keep coming though. They’ll be on for two hours by the end. Probably mindful of Westminster City Council’s ultra-strict curfew policy and given that we are now well past 10pm, “We’re not going to do that walk on and walk off thing,” we’re told. Before we know it, it’s ‘Hotel California’ and it just felt magical being in Hyde Park late on a summer evening watching the Eagles perform the song they’ll always be most famous for. We’re not quite finished yet and there’s time to squeeze in ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, ‘Desperado’  and ‘Already Gone’ before the curfew hits.

A truly magical evening and a chance to finally see one of my bucket-list bands. And next week it’s the Stones!

https://eagles.com/

Setlist:

Seven Bridges Road

One of These Nights

New Kid in Town

Witchy Woman

Take It to the Limit

Lyin’ Eyes

In the City

I Can’t Tell You Why

Victim of Love

Tequila Sunrise

Best of My Love

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Take It Easy

Life’s Been Good

Those Shoes

The Boys of Summer

Funk #49

Heartache Tonight

Life in the Fast Lane

Hotel California

Rocky Mountain Way

Desperado

Already Gone

Related review:

Live review: the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park 3/7/22

“We were never about making the same album twice” – Led Zeppelin III: 50th anniversary interviews

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October 2020 marks fifty years since the release of the Led Zeppelin III album. Greater Manchester Rock Radio’s Stewart Taylor recently devoted one of his ‘Classic Albums’ shows to celebrating the album’s anniversary. The show included exclusive interviews with all three surviving members of the band. GMRR have kindly shared those recollections from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones for this piece.

Led Zeppelin III showed a marked progression in style from the previous two albums where the hard rock and blues influences were accompanied by folk influences and acoustic-based tunes. To begin preparing for the band’s third album Page and Plant had decamped to the isolated Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in Wales:

Jimmy Page: “The creative process for Led Zeppelin III changed because the first album had been – I wouldn’t say in a hurry because it was done efficiently and from the period before that we had already started doing a few dates in Scandinavia – and we didn’t stop! We didn’t stop working, all the way through 1969. And we’d managed to do the second album and we were also doing dates and tours in America. And we got our first – what you would call a break. And it was nice because it was fabulous all the energy of being on the road. But it was nice to breathe a sigh of relief and take in the general scent of the countryside… There was still writing going on but it wasn’t the frantic pace of having to do a show that night. The cottage in Wales was one of Robert’s ideas… It was good because it was acoustic guitars and whatever. There was literally no electricity. It was log fire, gas lights and little tape recorders. So the electricity that was in that place was the electricity we were producing with the music if you like.”

Robert Plant: “It had been a real fast quite a rollercoaster to get to that point. From what I remember we really needed to take stock and we were very aware or wished to make a departure of some kind and to calm it all down a bit….We wanted to try and break off, break away and we had an affinity he and I. And even if it wasn’t absolutely the most fruitful moment of the time, it at least allowed us the space to have space. And that meant that when we went on to write further on down the line we had developed the ability to create more space in the music.”

The pair were then later joined by John Bonham and John Paul Jones at another location, Headley Grange:

John Paul Jones: “I suppose it was the first time we’d ever we just sat down together and just tried things, you know, tried lots of different things. We had acoustic instruments as well hanging around. And it was just really nice to sit around a stretch out a little bit I suppose and just experiment. The band was never about making the same album twice.”

On the decision to plant themselves firmly in the ‘albums band’ camp:

Jimmy Page: “It was really apparent what was going on in America. There’d been a number of FM stations that had been established. And these FM stations were playing what we’d now call alternative music – to the singles. And you’d even get to hear them playing a whole side of an album. And I thought – oh boy! This is wonderful. This is the area to go in. Not the singles market because the problem with the singles market, you’d have a single that everyone has worked on… and you’d find bands who did that, the rest of the album material wasn’t very good.  Because they were a singles market band. Not only that you’d find when they did the next album… they have to do something that sounded very much like the single off the first album so everyone knew who they were. We didn’t do that.”

Led Zeppelin III saw the band exploring more acoustic material:

Robert Plant: “The thing opened up much more then. Although it was there – I mean on the second album there was ‘Ramble On’ and on the first album there was ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’. There was the kind of acoustic element. The variety was there. My performance I wasn’t that pleased with on the first and second but by the third… ‘Gallows Pole is one of my favourite tracks and ‘Immigrant Song’ is, too. They were just so far between the two. And that to me was the beginning of me actually saying yep, boy, you can do something. Rather than it all being in the one idiom if you like. So yeah, I started getting a bit of pride then”

At the end of the hour-long show each of three are asked for their final thoughts on the album, listening back on it now:

John Paul Jones: “Well it reminded me how good a band it was. Also, it reminded me how much I miss John Bonham.”

Robert Plant: “All we wanted to do was keep stretching. This is the whole thing about Led Zeppelin.”

Jimmy Page: “If the band was going to stay together then you could really start going on this road where these initial ideas are expanded…right over the horizon in every direction.”

Thanks to Greater Manchester Rock Radio. You can listen to the full hour-long programme on Soundcloud here:

Related post:

The night Jimmy Page asked if he could hang out with me

Photo Credit: cottage via Andy c/o Wiki