Robert Plant-Band of Joy Tour-Houston


Man, I really had high expectations for his swing thru Houston last night but sadly I found the performance rather ho-hum.. The few LZ tunes chosen were played out as new versions of. The song selection was a mix of some new material, Robert Plant/Allison Kraus stuff and not enough LZ tunes.. Their were flashes of Plant seemingly ready to break out and rock but his performance was restrained.
128x128bornie
I'll play devil's advocate for a moment.

Entertainers like Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, et. al. are very wealthy. IMO, money is not the primary reason they are recording and/or touring.

Like an athlete whose skills have diminished but continues to compete, the entertainer simply does what he/she does best. And they really enjoy doing it.

Thank goodness we aren't forced to watch or listen when father time has bypassed these folks.

IMO
We attended the last Page/Plant tour & the recent tour with Alison Krause. Both were stunning & spectacular so our expectations might have been a little unrealistic. The Band of Joy was enjoyable but really pretty low key and I hate to use this word but maybe a little uninspired. He just didn't seem to have quite the fire I hoped to see. According to Rolling Stone a second venture with Krause recently fell apart because the magic wasn't there. I thought the washboard
thing seemed a little silly. He needs to get back to what the Brits do best....ripping off American blues artists to make some of the worlds best rock & roll before it's too late.
I gotta update this post. My wife bought the Band of Joy disc at Costco for 10.00 & I like it way more than the concert.
I was on vacation in Montana & saw them perform on the Today show & in that controlled environment they looked & sounded
great. Possibly their live gigs are gelling better after being out there for a while. Also the venue I saw them in had horrible acoustics.
Buddy Miller is a phenomenal talent, adding beautiful haunting guitar licks.
Robert Plant can continue to pretend he's Woody Guthrie
all he wants. This is a very good record.

I just watched the plant/band of joy concert on Artists den.

I thought it was pretty damn good! Great talent in that band.

I agree with Audiofeil it's done for love of the craft.

Best,

Dave