Freak flag still flying, Robert
Plant, late of Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin reunions, brought his
enduring rock glamour and still-mighty god-hammer to the Greek Theater
in an awesome display of control and abandon whose only fault was that
it ended too soon. Plant still roams the territory marked out by
Zeppelin, that unsuspected country bordered by the Mississippi Delta,
the Middle East and Middle Earth, a place of lemon-squeezing heat,
filigreed Orientalism and fairy-tale wonder; such is the stuff of his
latest album, Dreamland, mostly a collection of covers, with an
emphasis on old-school West Coast psychedelia. (The live set also
included a cover of Love's "A House Is Not a Motel.")
Onstage between songs, Plant
recalled with affection the golden age of the Sunset Strip, yet, unlike
so many musicians of a certain age, he doesn't confuse his love of the
days of his youth with the notion that the music was better then. Nor
like most does he aspire to tastefulness -- or he's outgrown such
aspirations -- preferring the grease, the grind, the garage. As
performed by a band whose combined CV includes stints with Portishead,
Sinèad O'Connor, Roni Size and Massive Attack, Plant's music
felt huge and tidal and utterly modern in the sense that it belonged to
no time but its own, and while often beautiful and sometimes delicate
(Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" fought gamely against the crowd), it
was never polite. Notwithstanding that nearly half the set mined the
Zeppelin catalog, from an angular "Four Sticks" to a cheeky "Hey Hey
What Can I Do" to a massive "Whole Lotta Love," there was no pandering
to nostalgia, only working out new variations on old themes.
While Plant doesn't have all
the high notes he used to, he used to have more than he needed, and
remains a singer of fantastic power, recovered flexibility and restless
intelligence, redeeming in the rendering his sometimes hippie-Hobbity
lyrics and frequent use of the sobriquets "mama" and "little girl"
(meaning the same thing, oddly enough). Roadies bring him hot tea now,
and he does not bare his chest as in days of old when magic filled the
air, but he put his body into his act, twirling and dipping and
clapping hands. And there was magic enough.
© Robert Lloyd 2002
and 2011
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