.

His sold-out Wednesday night show at the Mobile Saenger Theatre made it crystal clear why he’s stuck to a different path, even after a one-off 2007 concert that showed the three surviving members of the band can still bring the old fire to the stage.

Suppose he took liberties with, say, “Misty Mountain Hop” on a Zeppelin tour. He’d have fans by the thousands grousing that he didn’t do it right.

At the Saenger he took liberties and it made for one of the most brilliant moments of an exceptionally satisfying night. The pace was slowed down. The familiar riff was somewhat simplified, though its driving urge seemed only to gain power in the process. The arrangement brought in more folk, even country.
plant.jpgView full sizeJohn David Mercer/Press-RegisterRobert Plant’s Wednesday night show at the Saenger included material from throughout his career.

It sounded like the kind of primal rock-surf-rockabilly nugget that Quentin Tarantino likes to dredge up and use in his film soundtracks. It was huge.

But that’s not to say the night was dominated by Zeppelin nostalgia. The set list was salted classic rock, sure: “Tangerine” brought the audience to its feet for a sing-along, a countrified “Houses of the Holy” featured playful guitar quotes from the Joe Walsh classic “Life’s Been Good,” and “Gallows Pole” closed the set.

But in the end, they formed only a quarter or so of the selections. Plant went pretty much wherever he wanted, and covered a lot of ground in the process.

It helped that he had stacked the deck in his favor. His use of the “Band of Joy” name goes back to his pre-Zep days, leading one to believe the supporting players might be interchangeable. But the five-piece lineup he brought to Mobile included Buddy Miller, an acclaimed guitarist (among other skills) who’s played on tours and albums by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. And it also featured acclaimed singer-songwriter Patty Griffin on supporting vocals.

Griffin naturally stood in for bluegrass belle Alison Krauss on a couple of tracks from “Raising Sand,” the multiple Grammy-winning album that has been Plant’s biggest post-Zeppelin success. But she also was instrumental on numerous tracks from the Band of Joy’s eponymous album due out in September. Based on those selections, it appears the disc will have some of the spooky folk quality of “Raising Sand,” but with a grittier, heftier feel to the music.
plant with band.jpgView full sizeJohn David Mercer/Press-RegisterThe Band of Joy includes guitarist Buddy Miller, front left, and vocalist Patty Griffin, far right.

Plant found time to work in a couple of select tracks from his 1980s solo albums as well.

“This is all a little bit premature,” Plant said of the decision to play so much material from the Band of Joy project before its on-sale date.

Though not especially talkative, the singer did mention that he was overdue for a return to Mobile, given that had been 30-plus years since Zeppelin played the Mobile Civic Center, then known as the Municipal Auditorium.

And he waxed enthusiastic about Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt who, he said, he had only recently discovered. Van Zandt’s “Harm’s Swift Way,” which will appear on the upcoming album, was the first selection of a four-song encore.

Did the encore contain some Zep? Of course. But the band finished with something else entirely, a bit of a cappella gospel.

And that was just one more thing Plant couldn’t do on that reunion tour so many fans dream of. He seems to understand the value of past successes: Having them is great. Not being a prisoner of them is better.

The night also featured an outstanding opening set from Bettye LaVette, an old-school soul singer who struggled for decades before gaining commercial success and critical acclaim in the last five years or so.

“It is so wonderful to be here with you tonight,” she said, alluding to her long road. “Or as they used to say on the chitlin circuit, it’s wonderful to be anywhere.”

LaVette’s eclectic tastes were on full display, her soul vocals backed by a rock band as she interpreted songs by George Harrison, Ringo Starr and George Jones. And she brought the house down with her concluding rendition of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me.”

Few openers have set the stage so well, and few have left it to such powerful ovations.

Lawrence F. Specker, Press-Register
http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2010/07/robert_plant_defies_expectatio.html

Still, it’s a credit to Plant’s perseverance that his trajectory didn’t crumble with Zeppelin’s demise. In fact, his career blossomed again when he began recording solo. Over the past 30 years, Plant has delved into a dazzling array of styles and sentiments, from modern rock and rockabilly to exotic Eastern motifs and the far reaches of the American heartland.

His last album, Raising Sand, recorded with bluegrass bard Alison Krauss, provided his most significant shift in stance to date. It was a collection of dusty backwoods narratives that earned the pair a half-dozen Grammys, overwhelming acclaim, and a distinction for creating one of the most unexpected collaborations of the past decade.

Plant is back with an upcoming album, Band of Joy, scheduled for release this September. With it comes a new outfit of the same name, featuring some of roots music’s most esteemed players. Among them are producer/guitarist Buddy Miller (the man behind the boards for Raising Sand), renowned guitarist Darrell Scott, and singer/songwriter Patty Griffin. The new music uses an archival sound as its springboard but incorporates Plant’s hallmarks of sonic diversity and experimentation.

Crossfade spoke with the legendary vocalist during his stopover in Memphis, the launching point for his current tour. Despite his once-fierce reputation, these days he comes across as amiable, astute, and refreshingly down-to-earth. Here’s what he had to say.

Crossfade: It’s great to speak with you, Robert.

Robert Plant: It’s good to talk to you too. It’s good talking to anyone that far south.

I saw you about 15 years ago at the Cropredy music festival in Oxfordshire England…

Ah, those English folk festivals. It’s a great place for alcoholic poisoning.

What amazed me was the fact that you and Jimmy Page were actually out in the crowd watching the concert with everybody else.

We were in disguise.

No, you weren’t!

Well, we were nearly middle aged and no one recognized us. The thing about those folk festivals is that everybody is nearly cross-eyed with the local ale and stuff, and the music is almost an optional extra.

True. So let’s move on to the present. Your new album seems to be a continuation of your last project, with further delving into Americana. You’re also working once again with producer Buddy Miller.

Well, we have to be careful with terminology here. First of all, my relationship with Buddy Miller developed during the time when I was traveling with Alison Krauss. He’s an expert on the great American songbook…. I mean he’s got like 50,000 tunes on his laptop. It’s spectacular, an absolute cavalcade of joy.

Since I first saw him many years ago with Emmylou Harris in Dublin, Ireland, I always set my sights on trying to work with him. So out of our last album, Raising Sand, came a friendship with Buddy, and out of the friendship with Buddy came this album.

It’s not so rigorously attached to the more sort of smoky side of American music. There are great moments of psychedelic twist and twirl, and lot of swirling go on. It’s much trippier than the previous adventure — I can’t do a review of it because it’s too subjective — but it’s definitely going to another place and this is not a historical journey. It’s basically a journey of feel and soul without it being black at all.

You always seem so unafraid when it comes to stepping into different genres with each album. It seems no two albums of your albums are ever the same. You’re so willing to step outside your own boundaries.

Well, if you go back to Led Zeppelin — if you go back to 1968 — I don’t recall a great deal of continuity between Zeppelin I and Zeppelin III and Physical Graffiti and In Through the Old Door. I mean, we do have to satisfy ourselves as musicians on a creative level but we still have to carry a punch and a dynamism which is recognizable, and then also change within all that. That’s what I do.

I can’t see this simply as a career; this is just an amazing journey. And so I’ve got to tap into the root of all joy, which is an amazing song … whether it’s one that I’ve written or one that I’ve heard which moved me for a period of time. My ears are always open and flapping. I hear so much great stuff. I’m going to be moving through that, I’m going to be moving through those adventures, and I have an able and fantastic company to do that with.

That’s the great thing. I could be stuck in some kind of rut which developed so many years ago… the sparkle could have gone.

And for all of that, aren’t there still people who will inevitably think of you only as the singer for Led Zeppelin?

Well, I don’t know. That’s up to them really. I’ve made eleven records since then and sold maybe 40 or 50 million copies of them. It’s not as if I’m Mick Jagger and I keep going back to the Rolling Stones every time I have a project that doesn’t work. I mean, you’ve got to keep moving along.

Look at John Paul Jones right now - he’s in a great band - Them Crooked Vultures. I’ve seen them play and I’ve been so marveling at John’s energy and his own ability to take his gift into another zone. That’s what it’s all about. I mean, you can’t stand still. You’ve got to turn it on, and this show that I’m doing right now is electrifying. It’s just got a different brand name.

You certainly have a great band. You call it band of Joy, but wasn’t Band of Joy your original group before you joined Zeppelin?

Well, it was one of them. It was the one that preceded Zep. John Bonham and I travelled the country, knocking on doors and saying, “Would you like to hear us play?” and everybody said, “No, fuck off.” It was really like devil-may-care, doesn’t matter, this is fantastic, we’re going to go with this no matter what. That’s kind of the way I feel about everything on a creative level. It was appropriate to use that banner for its original principles which were that this is fantastic! Take it or leave it!

You’ve explored so many different sounds but you’re always moving on. Do you ever have the desire - or the time - to revisit any of these areas?

Yeah yeah yeah! Last year I was playing in Abu Dhabi with a one string fiddle player from Guinea. If you go on YouTube you can find that stuff. And there’s some great polyrhythmic stuff I did with some Algerian guys from Paris.

Yeah, I’m always blown away by that North African smoky rhythm and the kind of great scales that are there, just as I was when I wrote “Kashmir” with Jimmy or when we wrote “Friends” or “In the Light.” They’re all kind of leaning towards that culture and that music.

So I haven’t left anything behind. I’m just doing this and I want to stay with this. This whole sphere incorporates rockabilly and it’s all there. It’s 21st century.

Were you surprised by all the accolades accorded Raising Sand? Did the six Grammys take you by surprise?

Yeah. I mean, who knows where the time goes, as Judy Collins once said. Who knows what on Earth is going on? You make a record with a whole bunch of people you never met before, you laugh a lot, somebody gives you some ribs - welcome to the South! - and you get a bunch of Grammys and triple platinum discs and stuff…. I was having breakfast with Alison up in Nashville two days ago and we were saying, “What was that all about?!”

After that kind of phenomenal success, was there a temptation to do another album with Alison? What was the divide that had you go off and do it this way? It must have been tempting to want to go back and do it all again.

Well, there is of course, but Alison’s career for 25 years has been with her band Union Station and all those guys, so it’s understandable that she works with them. I might have gone back to my other band Strange Sensation if I thought that was the place to go, but having met Buddy and that opening the window to Darrell Scott and Patty Griffin, I couldn’t go back to England, and musically I have to stay here now for the duration.

Do you ever go back and listen to the stuff you did with Zeppelin and kind of ruminate on it all?

Yes, absolutely. I also listen to Willie Nelson and I listen to Robert Johnson. I listen to Band of Horses…. I mean I listen to everything. And I’m very proud of what I’ve been associated with along the line.

I’m also thinking about, how come (blues musician) Charlie Patton was so good back then? Because he didn’t have a press agent, he didn’t have phone interviews, he didn’t do this, he didn’t do that. He stood on a street corner and let it come out and he changed the world.

Your love and admiration for ’60s West Coast outfits like Love and Moby Grape has also been well documented.

Oh yeah, you’ll hear it on this record. They’re so pastoral, and yet there’s so much device behind it. [Love leader] Arthur Lee’s game was so amazingly obtuse, it was fascinating. Fascinating!

There’s a new book out about Arthur Lee that you really should read. (”Forever Changes, Arthur Lee and the Book of Love” by John Einarson)

One last question. One of the best songs of your 40-plus-year career — – 10,000 years actually! — was a song called “Far Post.” It was a B-side and now a bonus track on the CD version of Pictures at Eleven, but it was never originally included on that album. It was on the back of “Burning Down One Side….”

It’s such a joke because at the time we couldn’t put it on the vinyl because we had too much time of music to press onto vinyl without the record jumping. I mean, we’ve just been going through it with this new album, trying to press up the vinyl sides of the record. So we couldn’t put it on the original Pictures at Eleven.

Why wasn’t it included in your solo anthology, Sixty Six to Timbuktu?

Gee, I never realized that. What a klutz! I thought I’d got it under control!

Well, we’re glad to be able to point that out. Maybe you can rectify that omission somehow.

I hope so. Anyway, very nice to speak to you. Have a happy day and I’ll see you soon. Bye bye.

By Lee Zimmerman
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/2010/07/robert_plant_miami_band_of_joy_tickets_2010.php

Since the Band Of Joy record won’t be released until fall, the audience was mostly flying blind and hoping to hear some Raising Sand and Zeppelin album cuts. While those tunes did show up on this strangely mild July evening, the show also featured an eclectic collection of covers of tunes from Los Lobos, Low, Richard Thompson, and Townes Van Zandt. The Los Lobos cover (”Angel Dance”) was far from reverent, and took a rather bright and happy original to a darker, scarier place. Other highlights included an affable “In The Mood” and a “Houses Of The Holy” rendition that traded the power chords of the original in for a twangier cousin that sounded a bit winking - far more Sticky Fingers than Physical Graffiti, if you will.

While the KSGR/KUT listening, folkster-heavy audience roared at everything that Austin resident Patty Griffin did, she seemed to go out of her way to take a backseat to both Plant and Miller, playing a lot of acoustic guitar and generally shying away from the use of her substantial vocal power. Miller, however, seemed more comfortable sharing Plant’s spotlight, and carried the band with a nice stylistic range and some memorable (but never bombastic) guitar work.

Throughout the show, Plant had the air of an accomplished artist both comfortable in his own skin and pleased to be in the company of musicians that intrigued him. Like Elvis Costello’s recent Sugarcanes project, Plant is obviously doing this to explore a genre he loves, touring receipts and record sales be damned. While back-to-back Americana projects might have been a surprise to Plant’s casual followers, the Zeppelin material showed that Plant wasn’t reinventing himself so much as paying a belated acknowledgment to the litany of traditional folk and blues influences that influenced his most famous works. As the evening worked toward a close with shambolic but enjoyable runs through “Thank You” and “Rock And Roll,” the Band Of Joy moniker seemed apt given the 2,000 smiling faces scattered across the Stubb’s lawn. The night actually ended with a lullaby (”And We Bid You Goodnight”), and with a strange bit of magic. As the band played, some blown bubbles floated through the air and caught the stage lights in a matter that resembled summer fireflies - making for a perfect end to a surprising evening of weather, music, and warmth.

By Tom Thornton
http://austinist.com/2010/07/27/music_review_robert_plant_band_of_j.php

But he seems to have hit a sweet spot these past few years. “Raising Sand,” his collaboration with Alison Krauss, was a weird miracle of rootsy swagger and classy rock lilt; the tour that followed produced some of his strongest, heaviest music in a very long time.

For his next trick, he revived the Band of Joy (which was the name of his pre-Led Zeppelin band with John Bonham), enlisted the help of Patty Griffin and “Raising Sand” tourmate Buddy Miller, cut a record that’s due in the fall and hit the road, stopping at a sold-out Stubb’s Monday night.

With Miller, Griffin and Nashville pros such as guitarist Darrell Scott, drummer Marco Giovino and bassist Byron House, Plant grooved through an often surprising set of covers, older solo material given a fresh coat of class and a few Zeppelin nuggets.

An swinging, almost psychedelic-folk take on Los Lobos’ “Angel Dance” followed opener “Down to the Sea” The Richard and Linda Thompson lament “House of Cards” and made beautiful use of Griffin’s vocals, which were occasionally a little lost elsewhere (she seemed to vanish on “Please Read the Letter”). Yes, he broke out “Tall Cool One” and “In the Mood.”

As for the Zeppelin, country-honk filled in for stomp on “Misty Mountain Hop,” “Over the Hills and Far Away” and especially “Houses of the Holy,” while the excellent “Gallows Pole” and “Tangerine” - both from the folkier “Led Zeppelin III” - flourished.

Miller was the set’s not-so-secret weapon, leading the band and contributing solos both razored and tuneful; his thrum of feedback powered the night’s most unexpected cover: indie rockers Low’s “Monkey.”

A glorious cover of Townes Van Zant’s “Harms Swift Way” all but upstaged Zep classics “Thank You” and “Rock and Roll” in the encore. The man really knows how to make folk songs into electric castles - it’s easy to see him making music like this for the rest of his life.

By Joe Gross
http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/music/entries/2010/07/27/live_review_robert_plant_and_t.html

Therefore, he also had to know that an overwhelming part of the audience was there to bask in “Communication Breakdown” and “Heartbreaker,” not to sample the Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and Louvin Brothers offerings from Band of Joy’s self-titled album due in September. He acknowledged as much four songs deep into the set, thanking the crowd for its “admirable restraint” after Sand’s “Please Read the Letter.”

Plant, who had an imp-like gleam in his eyes the duration of the 90-plus minutes he and Band of Joy were onstage Saturday night at the Woodlands, may have had the last laugh anyway. After his thank-you - Zep’s “Thank You” came in the encore, by the way - he and the four-man, one-woman Band of Joy began another fuzzy, acoustic-blues arrangement that only revealed itself as “Misty Mountain Hop” when Plant began singing the lyrics.

As soon as the words “Walkin’ in the park the other day, baby…” left the singer’s lips, the entire crowd leapt to its feet, a pattern that would continue the rest of the night: Standing for the Zeppelin tunes and, save a few intrepid souls that danced the night away, seated for everything else.

More than anything Plant and the other musicians did from the stage, that was the only difference between the Zeppelin and non-Zeppelin songs Saturday. Seeded with bandleader Buddy Miller’s biting electric leads and/or his and Darrell Scott’s sturdy acoustic rhythms, or overlaid/underscored with Scott’s pining steel, the Americana makeovers given “Tangerine,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Houses of the Holy” and “Gallows Pole” revealed those songs as very much precursors to where Plant’s musical head is now. Or always has been.

Newer material like opener “Down to the Sea,” “Monkey” and Sand’s  “Rich Woman” all dabbled in the same moody, Middle Eastern-laced mysticism of 1983’s “In the Mood” and “Tangerine” parent album Led Zeppelin III, while the new “Central 209″ highlighted the longtime Elvis fan’s rockabilly fetish; likewise, spurred by Byron House’s thumping upright bass, the reworking of ’80s solo hit “Tall Cool One” lacked only Gene Vincent’s leather jacket. And Thompson’s “House of Cards” easily outrocked “Misty Mountain Hop,” and nearly did encore closer “Rock and Roll.”

Finally, Plant proved himself as gracious a front man as he was a master of ceremonies. He ceded center stage to other Band of Joy members three times - first to former Texas resident Miller for a snarling “Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go”; then to Scott and his high-lonesome tenor for the country standard “Satisfied Mind”; and finally to Austin’s Patty Griffin, whose rousing, rapturous “Move On Up In Glory” eclipsed even the evening’s previous gospel high-water mark, a foot-stomping pairing of “12 Gates to the City” and the Staple Singers’ “Wade In the Water” that had come a few songs before.

By Chris Gray
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2010/07/saturday_night_robert_plant_ba.php

Band Of Joy is released on 13 September and is the follow up to 2007’s Alison Krauss collaboration album, Raising Sand.

A few in attendance at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on Friday night probably would have wholeheartedly embraced two hours of the classics, with or without his Zeppelin mates. But there were likely just as many who became enamored of Plant via 2007’s Raising Sand, his Grammy-winning detour into folk and country music overseen by Fort Worth-bred producer T Bone Burnett.

Inevitably, comparisons will be made between then and now. Plant’s latest foray into the great American songbook features a different cast of characters and a new name: Band of Joy. It’s a moniker plucked from the mists of Plant’s youth; he has resurrected the name, recruited some heavy hitters (Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Darrell Scott) and recorded an album due out in September.

Time and again Friday, Plant and his musical collaborators demonstrated a fine balance between muscular and mystical. The set list veered between eclectic covers — Zeppelin, of course; Richard Thompson, Ray Charles, slowcore rockers Low — and tunes from the band members’ respective projects.

The show was not without its flaws — the sound crew was bedeviled by mic problems early on. But Plant and the Band of Joy delivered a splendid, captivating performance. Whatever it may be that has captured Plant’s imagination about American roots music, one can only hope he continues to draw inspiration from this source for a long, long time. He’s never sounded more vital.

By Preston Jones
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/07/24/2358639/ex-led-zeppelin-frontman-robert.html

The excellent Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center was a cozy place to see and hear Plant and his band of Nashville/Austin stalwarts. The Band of Joy consisted of Buddy Miller (vocals, electric guitar), Patty Griffin (vocals, guitar), Darrell Scott (vocals, banjo, mandolin, pedal steel and acoustic guitars), Byron House (electric and acoustic bass, vocals), and Marco Giovino (drums, accordion, vocals). Griffin, Scott, and Miller each performed a song apiece over the course of the evening to showcase their impressive singing skills as well.

There is no doubt that Plant’s fixation with traditional American music (folk, gospel, country, and rockabilly) has made him follow his muse instead of reuniting with Led Zeppelin and wringing stadiums out of mounds of money. However, over the evening a number of Zeppelin numbers were re-invented with the shimmering, atmospheric (but still powerful) sound of the Band of Joy.

The concert started with snake-like Middle Eastern melody of “Down to the Sea” from Plant’s Fate of Nations album. Soon a number of songs from his later solo albums, the unreleased Band of Joy (coming out in September) and Raising Sand where performed. None of his Top 40 hits (save one) were done. So there was definitely a call to the audience to appreciate the music for music’s sake and as Plant mentioned later in the show, “I know there is a lot of new, weird stuff, but be patient – it’s worth it!”

A lovely “All the King’s Horses” from Mighty Rearranger led to “Please Read the Letter” where Patty Griffin stepped into Krauss’ role with great aplomb. One of the first of a generous number of Led Zeppelin numbers was a scuffling take on “Misty Mountain Hop.”

The group’s Gospel leanings were featured in an arresting medley consisting of “Oh What a Beautiful City,” “Wade in the Water,” and Led Zeppelin’s “In My Time of Dying” (which that group “borrowed” from Blind Willie Johnson’s “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed”). They also displayed it on another Band of Joy track called “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down.”

Plant performed songs written by some overlooked Folk and roots legends like “House of Cards” by Richard Thompson, “Angel Dance” by Los Lobos, and during the encore “Harm’s Swift Way” by Fort Worth’s own star-crossed Townes Van Zandt. Plant’s generosity to feature other songwriters extended to his own bandmates as he sometimes receded to the rear of the stage to sing backing and play harmonica during their turns at the front. He no doubt still believes in the ideals of the ’60s when he started his career and showed his Hippie roots by performing barefoot on a Turkish carpet.

One of the more unlikely visions of Plant was his turn playing the washboard during a new song called “Central Two 0 Nine” and ending it with an over-the-top flourish – probably not as good as a real Zydeco musician, but performed with a lot of chutzpah. When he did perform one of his more popular solo songs it was a controlled version of “Tall Cool One” from his Now & Zen album.

The crowd’s greatest applause was for the Led Zeppelin numbers that the Band of Joy performed their reinterpretations upon. The lovely “Thank You” from Led Zeppelin II brought out a number of lighters (actually cell phone LCDs) and showed that Plant’s paean to his first wife still could hit the heartstrings and worked well with pedal steel accompaniment. “The Houses of the Holy” from Physical Graffiti displayed some more fire with more chopped electric guitar work by Buddy Miller. Darrell Scott’s ancient looking banjo and very traditional playing style (not the rolling 3-finger Earl Scruggs’ Bluegrass type but the plucked, almost Civil War-era type) fit perfectly into “Gallows Pole” which closed out the main set of music.

During the encore, the classic Led Zeppelin “Rock and Roll” was played with rockabilly instrumentation and attitude. Plant displayed his love for all song traditions that led to the beginning of his career and some that he probably picked up along the way. His talented Band of Joy helped his musical voyage into more uncharted territories.

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2010/jul/24/photo-robert-plant-band-joy-meyerson/

The Led Zeppelin frontman’s wholesale adoption of the United States’ indigenous pop music is old news, delivered en masse by his Grammy-winning Raising Sand partnership with Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett. This new project of tasty, filling American covers is a logical progression for the 61-year-old, and as the Band of Joy gains its live legs before its eponymous recording’s released in mid-September, it’s plain that Plant’s enjoying the ride – even as the act morphs Zep classics like “Houses of the Holy” into meandering, roadhouse-ready shuffles fit for a two-step.

On Friday, he commanded the Meyerson like the mothership of yore, with piquant, soaring, on-point vocals and sufficient deference for his formidable crew to both support and spell him. Guitarist Buddy Miller’s cavernous twang possessed immeasurable touch, particularly during the traditional “Twelve Gates to the City” and on a psychotic lead turn during Low’s “Monkey,” while Darrell Scott’s soulful support on everything from dreadnaught to pedal steel and banjo made this cast of re-arrangers truly mighty.

This show, and this initial tour, is more a warm-up revue for Plant than a Band of Joy promotional vehicle, and what many came here to hear – the six Zeppelin covers – turned their ears. The most preserved: “Over the Hills and Far Away,” though the verse riff’s stop-start descent was abandoned. The most twisted but satisfying: “Thank You,” part of a masterful encore that also included “Rock and Roll” and Townes Van Zandt’s “Harm’s Swift Way.”

The latter’s a Band of Joy cut; the Zep songs aren’t. “Some things have to change,” Plant said smugly after “Houses of the Holy.” In his mind, change is joyful because it’s artful. In the crowd’s mind, change for the sake of art’s a little more dubious.

By MIKE DANIEL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/072510dngdrobertplant.1f5db5c.html