Black Dog in Dubstep

Well, this doesn't make me want to see White House Down:

New Robert Plant Video Upload

Robert Plant's official YouTube page in recent weeks uploaded Sensational Space Shifter performances of Spoonful and Black Dog. Today's addition is Tin Pan Valley.

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters

Robert Plant's official YouTube page has released a couple of videos from Robert Plant's South American/Australian tour this past winter.

Here's Spoonful



And Black Dog

Review Week - Day 4: Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters Live in Curitiba, Brazil

I had heard that Robert Plant had, in his own words, "found his big voice" during his fall shows with the Sensational Space Shifters (SSS). Not knowing for sure what that even meant, it was time to listen to what the Golden God was up to. All the shows from the South American tour the SSS are available for legal download at Livedownloads.com. I chose one randomly and wound up with Curitiba, Brazil on October 27th.


Plant sounds in very good voice on this night and his interaction with a lively audience is fun to listen to. Clearly the audience was in to it, and the Sensational Space Shifters gave them an uptempo set sprinkled with songs mostly from Plant's solo and Led Zeppelin career.

Unlike other tours, Plant stays fairly true to the originals, making arrangement changes for the instruments in use but not to the basic song itself. Rock and Roll, for instance, which was given a reworking into a rockabilly yawn-a-long, is back to being a solid rocker. Whole Lotta Love is recognizable as such while Black Dog is weirded out musically. The vocal line in the latter, however, is not much changed from the recent Celebration Day release.

Highlights include All The Kings Horses (during the intro of which someone yells, "beautiful man, beautiful"), Going to California and the aforementioned Rock and Roll. But outside of the opening song, Tin Pan Valley, there's nothing in this set that's not excellent. It has been a long time (been a long time, been a long time) since I've enjoyed listening to new Robert Plant music as much as I did this show.

That leaves us with one question: has Plant found his big voice? The answer is unquestionably yes and, having combined it with the half octave harmony vocalist he has learnt to be the last five years, he is effective and dynamic singer fronting a solid and entertaining band. One hopes Patty Griffin has more solo tours lined up in the next couple of years.

Setlist

• Tin Pan Valley


• Another Tribe


• Friends


• Spoonful


• Somebody Knocking


• Black Dog


• All The Kings Horses


• Bron-Y-Aur Stomp


• Enchanter


• Four Sticks


• Ramble On


• Freedom Fries


• Whole Lotta Love

-- Encore --

• Going to California


• Rock and Roll

A Real Led Zeppelin Over Dallas

Haha. Nice promo idea.



h/t Nech

Black Dog

This week Led Zeppelin released a video of Black Dog from the movie, Celebration Day, available Tuesday.

Black Dog Video

From the upcoming Celebration Day movie and DVD/Bluray

IV@40

If you came of age in the mid-1970’s, as I did, Led Zeppelin IV (aka ZOSO) was always there. You go to the carnival, and the Tilt-a-Whirl guy is blasting Rock and Roll, Black Dog and When the Levee Breaks. Guys driving down the street would be blasting it out of their 8-track player. You didn’t hear it for the first time, you absorbed it over time.

IV wasn’t even the first Zeppelin album I found and loved. That honour would fall to their third album, which I “borrowed” from my older brother on such a regular basis he bought me my own copy for Christmas the next year.

The follow up fourth album soon joined III as a staple of my record player. Mostly side one, it has to be confessed, for the obvious reasons. Frankly, song  for song, I’ll still take side one even now, with the exception of When the Levee Breaks which may be my favourite song on the album.

Everybody has favourites, and most Zeppelin fans will probably chose an album other than IV as their’s. But make no mistake, none will deny the greatness of Led Zeppelin IV. From song 1 to song 8, it contains no flaws, no misses. And in fact, in age when artists worried about the flow of the entire album, IV has two very different, but flawless sides, and still works as a complete unit. In other words, whether you throw on side 1, side 2 or the good old standby, 8-track and hear the whole thing through, it works.

But it’s still the songs that make the album, and IV features Led Zeppelin at their best. Rock and Roll, the bands answer to critics who said they had gone soft. Black Dog, a unique call and response style song unlike anything recorded before or since.

Battle of Evermore, the prelude to Stairway: Angry Hobbits with mandolins. Page and Jones, with just mandolins, acoustic guitar and, reportedly, a Dulcimer make the earth shake. Stairway to Heaven, in the aftermath of Battle of Evermore is like the dawn after battle. It’s message of hope in direct conflict with Evermore’s war call. Stairway to Heaven, the song that ended a thousand dances, more of a ritual than a rock song.

Side 2, if your using old school formats like me (or actually track 3 and 4, which is how I have listened to IV the last few times I’ve had it on), starts with the albums two weakest songs. Misty Mountain Hop, the hippy anthem. This falls in the category of second tier Zeppelin songs that prove just how good Zeppelin was. Four Sticks is a drum driven song with rather complex time structure. Again, most bands would kill to have this song in their repertoire, for Led Zeppelin in 1971, it was weak.

Going to California is the ultimate Zeppelin folk song. They had done folk before, had built the third album around folk songs, but Going to California trumps them all. Give Led Zeppelin acoustic guitars and mandolins and they were still the best rock band in the world, and Going to California is exhibit A.

Finally, the tour de force. Of all the songs on Led Zeppelin IV, When the Levee Breaks may have aged the most gracefully, which is odd considering it has all the grace of a charging Rhino. Built around John Bonham’s great drum pattern, the most sampled drum pattern in all of rap, Zeppelin rolls for 7 minutes of chicago blues like no other. It is pure driving rock yet, thanks to Bonham, swings like an old soul song.

Left off the album destined to  appear on 1975's Physical Graffiti, the songs Night Flight, Down By the Seaside and Boogie With Stu. Those three songs, the afterthoughts, those are a career for some bands.

Forty years ago today, November 8, 1971 Led Zeppelin IV was released. It  may have been the best album of the rock era, yet not Led Zeppelin best album. It is good enough to be called that, and Zeppelin good enough to transcend it.

Mr. Plant Goes to Marfa

Patty Griffin stepped onstage  last night at Marfa, Texas for the first night of the El Cosmico Trans-Pecos Festival of Music and Love, and introduced her new band, Crown Vic: "I'd like to introduce you to my dear, dear friend, Robert Plant."

Plant joined the band of Texans for a run through a set of old songs, including at least three Led Zeppelin numbers, Rock and Roll, Misty Mountain Hop and Black Dog. A poster on YouTube noted, "(Crown Vic) Played a lot of Zepplin. One of the best shows I have ever seen."



Rumour is that Plant will stay in Texas and work with Crown Vic when Griffin goes out for a series of dates with Buddy Miller later this month.

More at Lemon Squeezings.

OA Online.

From Robert Plant's official website.

Led Zeppelin's Last Flight - July 7, 1980

Thirty one years ago Jimmy Page stepped on stage at the Eissporthalle in Berlin dressed in a grey suit and black shirt with a black scarf draped around him. He stepped on his wah-wah peddle and played the train whistle intro to Train Kept a Rollin'.



Led Zeppelin played a 14 song, 144 minute set for the 6,000 German fans, the last show on their Over Europe 1980 tour. It turned out to be Led Zeppelin's last show.

The concert featured a 14 minute version of Stairway to Heaven, with Page playing one of the longest solos he ever played on that song. The band also did extended jams on Trampled Underfoot and Whole Lotta Love.



Set list - Led Zeppelin, July 7, 1980. Berlin, Germany

1. Train Kept a Rollin'


2. Nobody's Fault But Mine


3. Out on the Tiles Intro/Black Dog


4. In The Evening


5. The Rain Song


6. Hot Dog


7. All My Love


8. Trampled Underfoot


9. Since I've Been Loving You


10. White Summer-Black Mountain Side/Kashmir


11. Stairway to Heaven


12. Rock and Roll


13. Whole Lotta Love

Dave Lewis of Tight But Loose has just released a new book on the Led Zeppelin Over Europe, 1980 tour, called Feather in the Wind - Over Europe 1980. It is chock full of information and pictures. The book is a must read for Zeppelin fans, as it fills in the story of that last, vastly underreported tour.

Feather in the Wind - Over Europe 1980 can be ordered from the Tight But Loose website, and can't be recommended enough.