[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Robert Plant Rocks the house

Steve,

Steve Sauer wrote:

Anyway, it's Plant's choice to play a Zeppelin song or not. And these
next questions are directed toward those of you who are saying he
should drop all Zeppelin songs since he seems so intent on not making
any music with the other Zeppelin guys. Is that really what you want?
Would you avoid Robert Plant coming to your town to play a concert
simply because you know he's playing Zeppelin songs? And if that's the
case, then would you DEFINITELY go to a Robert Plant concert in your
town if you knew he was going to play all new material and not a
single thing from his past?

And if you said yes to that last question, then I hope you jumped at
the chance to see Plant in 1983 because that's exactly what he was
doing at the time. His second album was out, and between that first
one's material and that second one's material, he was playing little
else onstage -- certainly not any Zeppelin songs.
I've often said I found Plant's 1982-1985 output some of his best post-Zeppelin music simply because it was an honest attempt to create truly new and interesting music on its own terms. No, I didn't go see him because he played nowhere near where I was living at the time. I bought the records, read the interviews and followed his career with admiration. His solo records formed a big part of the soundtrack of my life in my 20's. I think that qualifies me to comment every bit as much as someone who attended a show or two on the Non-Stop Go tour! 

It sounds like some of you have been suggesting this 61-year-old go
out and play a concert of nothing but the songs that make people leave
their seats and head for the bathrooms.
Of course not. We want him to make music we'll like the way he used to. Robert Plant's solo tours in the 80's were quite successful. It was only in the the early 90's that he started declining in popularity to the point where he was reduced to opening for Lenny Kravitz (which reported bugged the hell out of him). 


"This one's from the new album. ... This one's ALSO from the new
album. ... This one's, yep, you guessed it -- well, why are you
leaving? You all wrote on FBO that I wasn't allowed to sing 'No
Quarter' without Jonesy and Jimmy, and they're not here tonight, so,
as I said, this one's from the new album... Where are all of you
going?" [crickets]

Is this really what you want? That would make you happy? It just seems
an asinine position to espouse.
No one I know complained when Plant added Led Zeppelin songs to his live act in 1988-1993 because he more or less kept them pretty close to the standard versions. They weren't simply different for the sake of being different. For God's sake, the whole "world music" thing is stale. Adding some African musicians and a wannabe (Adams) is something Paul Simon did nearly a quarter century ago. It's hardly new, exciting or creative at this point. Plus, the fact that he's consistently choosing the best known LZ songs such as Black Dog and Whole Lotta Love makes it seem like a deliberate attempt to say "fuck you!" to those LZ fans who made it possible for him to avoid those budding careers as an asphalt layer or acountant! 


Another question: Would you go to a John Paul Jones concert in your
town if you knew he was going to play all new material and not a
single thing from his past? In other words, if Them Crooked Vultures
scheduled a gig in your town, would you be undecided about going
simply based on the fact that you haven't heard any of their music and
you were rather certain they wouldn't be doing a single song from
Jonesy's past?

It doesn't seem to be stopping anyone from enjoying the shows so far.


I hope all of you within a reasonable distance of a Vultures show were
enthusiastically trying to get tickets when they went on sale, barring
family emergencies and the like, or else you look pretty hypocritical.
You're making a rather narrow assumption here, that only those who actually attend live shows are entitled to comment. What about those who buy the records? What about those of us who were buying LZ records when you were nothing more than a twinkle in your mama's eyes and Robert Plant solo records while you were crawling around the play pen? ;) Are we not qualified as well?