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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > September > 27 > Entry
ACL review: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
It’s hard to imagine a more understated opening for a more rabidly anticipated performance: the musicians, stock-still, silhouetted against the proscenium backdrop; the two headliners, emerging simultaneously from opposite wings of the stage, making their way to the pair of microphones waiting under the hot, white spotlight.
That sense of economy and understated elegance permeated the entirety of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ headline set Saturday night. The improbable pair — leather-lunged Brit superstar meets demure bluegrass songbird — has been touring behind their duet album, ‘Raising Sand.’
Now, it’s easy to imagine in some precincts that Plant would be the 500-lb. gorilla on the bill, with Alison Who? lending a little distaff charm to the ticket. But at ACL, Krauss’ musical credentials (if not her rock star charisma) easily put her on a par with her more famous duet-mate.
It was a carefully-crafted performance, built upon the foundation of a crackerjack band under the direction of T-Bone Burnett. And though Burnett laid back, his musicians, especially guitarist Buddy Miller and Stuart Duncan, tore the joint up.
The set mixed material from the album, some traditional mountain music and a handful of Led Zeppelin classics chopped, channeled and stripped down to their roots. “Black Dog,” for instance, started out in as an almost unrecognizable, hallucinatory arrangement, and you could sense the excitement ripple through the crowd as the familiar melody finally asserted itself.
It must have represented a dream come true for Plant — his Led Zeppelin tunes reimagined as part of the timeless fabric of the folk and traditional music he grew up loving in England.
Though she’s a fiddle virtuoso, Krauss hardly availed herself of the instrument during the show. But she sang like a bird, her crystalline tones providing a silvery counterpoint to Plant’s weathered blues moan. For his part, Plant kept the rock-god histrionics tamped down. It wasn’t until the ninth song of the set, “Black Country Woman,” that he finally let his powerhouse, cock-of-the-walk yowl off its leash.
Other highlights included an extended workout on “In the Mood” (no, not the Glen Miller classic) that saw Krauss dropping a chorus of the folk classic “Matty Grove” into the mix, a dreamy, druggy take on Benny Spellman’s “Fortune Teller,” a luminously beautiful Krauss vocal solo on “Through the Morning, Through the Night,” with Plant taking a back seat to echo her vocals, and the bouncy, upbeat rockabilly set-closer, a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Gone, Gone, Gone.”
“(John) Fogerty was a concert; this was a show,” enthused one spectator, summing it all up.
Photo: Erich Schlegel FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2008: Saturday, ACL Festival
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By Karen
September 28, 2008 9:13 AM | Link to this
We had long looked forward to this show, but couldn’t get close enough to enjoy it. The sound bleed-over from Beck was enough to drive us away, and this will probably be something we regret missing at ACL for a very long time.
By Matt
September 28, 2008 2:11 PM | Link to this
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were the BIG DISAPPOINTMENT of this year’s ACL festival. The two of them came out on stage and very quietly started their set. They were so low energy that we relied upon the video to tell us when the first two songs started and stopped.
When the third song started and, once again, it was not a Led Zeppelin classic or anything else we recognized, we bailed… along with about half the other people in the crowd.
WTF?
By Chris hastings
September 29, 2008 5:30 PM | Link to this
I can’t believe Matt’s comments. We were right up front and were amazed with the show. I had planned to skip out before the end to go see Beck; but I found myself staying until the bitter end and was blown away. What’s the matter, Mr. Matt, you don’t listen to music that you don’t already know?
By Keith
September 29, 2008 6:24 PM | Link to this
I feel sorry for those who thought they were coming to a Led Zeppelin show. They obviously did not do their homework beforehand. The show was stellar, with Krause & Plant delivering everything I expected from Raising Sand, as well as the reworked Zep tunes that showed up. The biggest surprise for me was how excellent Buddy Miller was on guitar. Wow. All I got to say to those who left- thanks for the room. It was an excellent cap to Saturday.
By emma hemmingway
October 7, 2008 4:58 AM | Link to this
I came all ther way from England to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss- we loved Raising Sand and saw them in the UK at a great gig in Birmingham. But their performance at ACL was lack lustre, disappointing and really showed me they have been on tour too long. The songs were merely perfunctorily perfomred, as though they couldn’t wait to get to the end of the set- and Alsion has allowed Robert too much Led Zep influence-and too much past nostalgia- even to the point of getting her to sing an old Sandy Denny number- this was not the cracking duo we had seen back in May- and I wonder what if anything these two can come uop with next to delight us. What a shame- still it remains a great album but these two seem to have fallen out of love with it over too long a time performing it.