Review: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at Starlight
Click the photo to see a slide show of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' show at Starlight.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
September 23, 2008
Starlight Theatre
Better Than: Pickin’ on Led Zeppelin
By SCOTT WILSON
Robert Plant may be a bona fide rock god, but he shuffled onto the stage at Starlight last night in a protective crouch, stoop-shouldered as an arthritic uncle called upon to deliver a speech at a wedding. Then he got to the microphone. The once (and future?) Led Zeppelin frontman straightened, parted the curtains of his frizzy mane and became … a relatively sure-footed uncle of orbit-fixing charisma called upon to deliver a speech at a wedding. The nuptials in this case: a foreigner’s unspoiled awe of American song forms joined with a flying wedge of U.S. musicians bent on verisimilitude. Co-headliner Alison Krauss, whose fiddle came out early and worked often, guided Plant through a songbook devised by heroic dilettante T-Bone Burnett and played with wit and impeccable attention to detail by a relaxed band.
In their dark coats and ties, that band at first looked like pallbearers ready to carry their mountain sounds far away from rock. They turned out to be groomsmen attending Plant, whose body registered vibrating glee not just at singing this music but at witnessing it. Krauss, a wraith swathed in what looked like a smartly tailored vintage bedspread, beckoned Plant and the players with her coal-into-crystal voice. Her singing and Plant’s ducked ahead of and behind the beat and each other, making every song sound as immediate as a rehearsal without sacrificing a dram of certainty.
Burnett, who took center stage for just one song, led his group from a discreet parcel of the stage, occasionally whipping guitar picks at the audience in an awkward flourish and conducting with the neck of his guitar, a deacon in a long coat that flapped at his sides. The evening’s primary pleasure may have been the simple sight of journeyman musicians at work, with Plant and Krauss just two more professionals finding joy in their labor. Drummer Jay Bellerose hit like a prizefighter, and bassist Dennis Crouch held his ground without loosening his tie. Bookending the stage, guitar players Buddy Miller and T-Bone Burnett (the tour’s musical director) added layers of baritone intrigue, curt fuzz and ringing clarity. Fiddle player, banjo picker and all-around catgut swell Stuart Duncan shadowed Krauss’ voice and instrument, complementing and anticipating her tone.
For a solid 90 minutes, Plant and Krauss harvested most of their recorded collaboration, last year’s lovely Rising Sand, supplementing it with well-chosen Led Zeppelin songs and Plant’s “In the Mood,” the orignal’s monotone brightened by the band’s attack and by the interpolation of the standard “Mattie Groves.” What comes off sober and reverential on disc last night sounded good-humored and forward-looking. It’s hard not to hope for a second volume of Plant and Krauss at play in Burnett’s Americana fields.
Setlist
Rich Woman
Leave My Woman Alone
Black Dog
Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us
Through the Morning, Through the Night
So Long Goodbye to You
Fortune Teller
In the Mood (with “Mattie Groves”)
Black Country Woman
Earlier Baghdad
Trampled Rose
Wildwood Flower
Down to the River
Nothin’
Battle of Evermore
Please Read the Letter
Gone Gone Gone
Don’t Knock
When the Levee Breaks
Killing the Blues
In the Pines
One Woman Man
Critics Notebook
Personal Bias: I prefer the “O Bonham, Where Art Thou?” version of “The Battle of Evermore,” which is more Cold Mountain than Lord of the Rings.
Random Detail: The source of Jay Bellerose's huge sound: mallets, big shakers and vintage kits.
By the way: Opener Sharon Little sang her small, appealing songs with a big, precocious voice that convinced plenty of people to pick up her CD before Plant and Krauss went on.
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