Are you ready to be beguiled? That’s the prime question that attaches itself to Robert Plant’s latest band. Do you want to explore new musical directions, hear things you haven’t heard before, or are you really just here in the hope of a couple of Zeppelin covers? Even if it were the latter, with this band, you wouldn’t be disappointed. Robert Plant has had an enviable career since the end of his most famous band, with just the occasional misstep in the 1980s with a move to be “relevant”. Most of the time, and certainly all through this century – whether it be with the reimagined Band of Joy, The Sensational Spaceshifters, The Strange Sensation or mining the bluegrass/folk cross-over vein with Alison Krauss – he has had the knack of making music that’s both engaging and intriguing, often leaning into his interest in folk music and a continuing affection for the sounds of the Sixties. His latest band, Saving Grace, produced one of the standout albums of the year and consists of Matt Worley on acoustic guitars and banjo, Tony Kelsey on a variety of guitars, Barney Morse-Brown on cello, Oli Jefferson on drums and with Suzi Dian as the band’s other singer. What distinguishes this band from previous ones is that Plant found all the musicians on his doorstep, within about twenty-five miles of where he lives – or even, as Plant suggests several times, in the Shropshire Tourist Information Centre.
The Festival Hall had finished filling up just as the band took the stage, followed by Plant and Dian approaching centre stage from opposite directions for a little handclasp before the spotlights picked them out as the gig opened with a song that shows that Robert Plant hasn’t stopped paying attention to what’s going on now: ‘The Very Day I’m Gone‘ was very recognisably Nora Brown’s song but here it was mutated into a spectral drone driven song that necessitated Worley undertaking a mid-song banjo swap out to achieve all the additional layers that added to, but did not swamp, the song. By contrast, ‘The Cuckoo‘ has a stomping Appalachian feel and highlights both the vocal equality of the singers as they duet and then the whole-band ethos as they give way totally to the other musicians, with Plant and Dian fading into the shadows for the first, but not the last, time. It was gospel and blues on the pacey ‘Higher Rock‘, punctuated by Plant’s driving harp playing and it’s hard to not read an artistic statement in the line “gilded cage is a treachery” which, perhaps Plant alluded to saying “we’re exploring the possibilities” before launching into the first Led Zeppelin song of the night – ‘Ramble On‘ – which got a lot of the audience more excited, clearly this was what they’d come for although, possibly not with Suzi Dian adding piano accordion – and yet, of course it worked amazingly well given a new shade to the over familiar.
There’s more band camaraderie on ‘Soul Of A Man‘ where Matt Worley took the lead vocal – and it’s perfectly clear that Plant is revelling in this sharing out of parts, he’s as thrilled as anyone when Tony Kelsey adds something wildly inventive on electric guitar or bashes out a Zeppelin-style riff on an acoustic. There are exciting hints of desert rock on ‘May Queen‘, sitting in Robert Plant’s new comfort zone of English-style folk blending with wild drones from wide-open desolate spaces: this is transformational magic being pulled out of a wild alchemy. ‘As I Roved Out‘ memorably strode the same territory; it’s the closest thing to a signature sound for this band, as it daringly expands the musical horizons of traditional song and carries a promise of rebirth and renewal, which surely is also relevant to the band’s founder.
Zeppelin riffage returned to excite the audience on ‘Four Sticks‘ which led Robert Plant to assert a love that continues for the music of his youth, but the light he shines on the poorly remembered Moby Grape with ‘It’s A Beautiful Day Today‘ doesn’t wallow in nostalgia, sure it’s a hippy-ish plea to approach the world with love and wonder, but with his new band isn’t that exactly what Robert Plant is doing? There’s another throwback with an exquisite cover of Neil Young’s ‘For The Turnstiles‘ which shimmered with an eerie intensity, part folk, part an experimental cello soloing dream, and latterly part rock song – and all parts, separately and as the whole, just perfection. The song has never sounded better.
The set closed with more Zeppelin, with ‘Friends‘ driven forward by powerful acoustic guitars and with Plant in full power vocal mode – close your eyes and, man, it could be 1970. Plant dances, he claps, he shakes the roof with his vocal. Anyone disappointed by this would be very hard to please. And in case they felt they hadn’t had their due, the Zeppelin focused had another serving with ‘The Rain Song‘ opening the encore. There was, though, still time for a thrust for the best song of the night, closing the encore with Low’s ‘Everybody’s Song‘, Saving Grace brought all their disparate talents together to weave a hypnotic sound that also was a perfect cap to a gig made up of traditional songs and covers, truly they were “singing everybody’s song“, and, moreover, doing it with panache. Here’s to the musical explorers and one of the finest gigs of the year.
Burr Island opened the evening in a perfectly pleasant way – with their take on the feelings of the lovelorn and emotionally disconnected. London-based but West Country-born, Burr Island have previously toured opening for Ocean Colour Scene, and they are also the support on the full Saving Grace tour. They are a little reminiscent of Great Lake Swimmers, and with guitar, cello, and synthesiser, and two lead singers, have a melodic, soft folk-rock sound for their songs of adolescent angst tinged with melancholy. And then, later than they probably should have done, they closed their set with a political sideswipe at those who “keep their cars clean but have hearts rusted by hate” and “grow flowers – but only English Roses“, calling everything foreign “weeds“. It’s a song full of a King Creosote-style invective, dripping contempt – a set with more of this would have made for a more memorable curtain raiser.
