Robert Plant… couldn’t all old rockers do it this way? A while ago he gave up singing “You been coolin’/Baby I been droolin’”, and headed off in a more rootsy direction. When he does a Led Zeppelin song it’ll be heavily reworked, and he doesn’t even bother with that once here. I’m not still doing what I did when I was twenty-one. Why should he?
Of course, paradoxically, he’s able to do this because Led Zeppelin had that element to them in the first place. But that’s part of the point. It’s because they were such a great band that he’s able to leave them, and it means they remain a great band in our memories. (Though it’s also true their one-off reunion show was awesome.)
His wish seems to subsume himself back in a band unit. The tickets in our pockets and the banner behind the stage read ‘Saving Grace’. And a great many of the vocals are sung chorally, between him and Suzi Dian, normally while looking to one another. It’s a noble endeavour. But of course a hopeless one. He gets the biggest round of applause as he comes on, and this review starts with his name.
The music’s rootsy not rocky, the guitarists swapping various acoustic and electric instruments with some dexterity. Early on there’s a banjo/mandolin team-up which sounds great, only for that combination to never come back. Even as they sing together it’s the difference between Plant and Dian’s voices which make it, like layers in a sandwich. (It’s bizarre to think now that throughout Zeppelin’s history he was only once paired with a female voice. It’s just that it was Sandy Denny, so we all remember.)
As he tends to these days, the set was mostly (perhaps all) covers. But with lyrics about angels handing you a new set of wings, of changing an old coat for a new, it feels like they’ve been chosen for a reason. This new band are yet to record. So while the support act has a CD stall they don’t, despite Plant’s career stretching back to the Sixties. Just like starting over.
There seems a strong tendency towards spirituals, perhaps more than the solo releases. And from there it all fits together. Choral vocals lend themselves to that, being intrinsically about the us. “It’s better than staying in,” Plant quips. And this proves timely. One of the first post-lockdown gigs reminds you that part of the point of music is to take you out of yourself, to bring us all together. The set ends with an out-and-out gospel number, five voices and one acoustic guitar around one mike. A warming way to be sent out into the night. I was still tempted to shout out for ‘Stairway to Heaven’, but resisted.
From an earlier tour, one of several Low covers Plant has done…
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