Washington DC review

[Tracy Phillips <Tracy_Phillips@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi FBOers,
Always a lurker, never a poster, but here's a surprisingly good review from the usually 
nasty Richard Harrington at the Post:
Plant and Page: Halfway Up That Stairway
                 By Richard Harrington
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
                  Wednesday, July 8, 1998; Page D01 
                 There was a whole lotta love at MCI Center last night and it was directed at 
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. It's been 19 years since Page and Plant  traveled as Led Zeppelin, 
and almost as long since they played the Led  Zeppelin songbook. But the songs remain the same 
and last night they dominated the two-hour, 17-song performance. 
These weren't the recast, refurbished versions that Plant and Page played three years ago, when 
Egyptian musicians and a strong orchestra cluttered the sonicscape. These were the joyfully 
repossessed originals, retuned to the classic format of vocalist Plant, guitarist Page and two 
newcomers, bassist Charlie Jones and drummer Michael Lee (original members John  Paul Jones and 
John Bonham being gone). The format, the repertoire, the
 reception clearly inspired Plant and Page, who embraced their classics with the same fervor and 
good spirits as John Fogerty when he was rejoined with his equally long-abandoned Creedence Clearwater 
Revival songs. 
Plant, clad in leather pants and a silver satin blouse, strutted around the stage with cocksure 
authority, his seemingly golden locks blowing in an artificial breeze and his razor-sharp vocals 
often taking off like a jet plane toward some stratospheric release. Page, in his traditional black 
garb and sporting a low-slung Les Paul, played with fleet confidence and frequent bravado, introducing 
younger audience members to the seemingly antiquated '70s notion of epochal guitar solos. As always, 
Page's playing melded incendiary technique and sensible constructs: You felt the pleasure in his 
playing, not the showmanship, and the chemistry with Plant was as intriguingly eclectic as it ever was.
Thirteen of the 17 songs were Zeppelinesque chestnuts, nine of them from the group's first three 
albums. They included the ascendingly urgent  "Heartbreaker," the mystic musings of "Ramble On" and 
those most curious reconstituted folk ballads "Gallows Pole" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." Sounding 
as if they'd been fused in an electric blender, the latter two songs were excellent showcases for 
Plant's vocals and Page's high-voltage histrionics (that little musical tease for the unplayed 
"Stairway to Heaven" probably set a few hearts racing, too).
Several new songs were unveiled, including "Heart in Your Hand," a yearning ballad of surrender, 
and "Shining in the Light," which sounded a bit Pearl Jam-ish, only fair since Pearl Jam's "Given to 
Fly" sounds exactly like "Goin' to California." The last got a tremendous reaction thanks to Plant's 
sweetly keening vocals and some graceful acoustic interplay between Page and Phil Andrews, who helped 
flesh out a number of songs on mandolin, squeeze box and keyboards. One he proved indispensable on was 
"No Quarter," where his spooky piano and Plant's textured vocals created a moody, underwater ambiance 
that underscored the song's dynamic shifts. Andrews also filled out "Most High," a new Moroccan-roll 
excursion whose pulsating rhythms came closest to evoking the mysterious, Middle Eastern mood of "Kashmir,"
 another unplayed classic. (On the  other hand, there was no intrusion by Puff Daddy, of the "Godzilla"
soundtrack collaboration, either.)

The evening's most raucous interaction came with Page/Plant revisiting the bracing primordial grooves of 
"How Many More Times," "Rock & Roll" (the final encore as tribute to the motherlode) and, of course, 
"Whole Lotta Love." The tense staccato riff that kicked off the last song has launched a
thousand bands and, some would insist, forged the mold for heavy metal, yet as gut-simple and roiling as 
the song remains, Page and Plant seemed to address it with fondness rather than any sense of duty. Page 
even digressed for a playful theremin solo before moving back to the guitar.  It would be easy for both 
of them to treat this venture as capital-intensive  capitulation -- since 1980 and the death of John Bonham, 
promoters have been begging for a Led Zeppelin reunion, only to be rebuffed by survivors who didn't want 
to revisit their hallowed past, the template of hard rock in
the '70s and '80s. Clearly enough time has passed to let the songs seem  almost new again and even the stage 
strut and the commanding presence seem undiminished with the years. Of course, Page and Plant basically 
invented all this in the late '60s. 
Last night, the happy revels suggested a family reunion with two proud papas and their temporarily abandoned 
children.
______

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