Robert Plant & Saving Grace, Glasgow review: 'a thing of wonder'
Former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is clearly having a ball with his current band, writes Fiona Shepherd
Robert Plant & Saving Grace, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ★★★★
“We're Saving Grace and we've come to help,” declared the living rock legend onstage. Right away, a gallus Glaswegian in the audience shot back: “We need all the help we can get”.
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This is Robert Plant’s “new” band, a hugely talented collective with whom he has been collaborating for the past few years, eminently capable of making life better for at least the duration of their immersive set. Even though everyone knew who had sold the tickets and provoked the guttural cries of excitement from the fans, the former Led Zeppelin frontman certainly made it seem like a partnership of equals. As much airtime was given to this exotic string band as to their star attraction, who strolled onstage facing off with his vocal foil Suzy Dian, their voices instinctively intertwining on the quiet storm of Nora Brown’s The Very Day I’m Gone.
In a taste of the set to come, they glided from a folk ballad released in the last five years to a dramatic version of traditional song The Cuckoo and then back to the 21st century for Martha Scanlan’s Higher Rock, foregrounding Dian's rich vocals and Plant’s piercing railroad harmonica.
Plant was clearly having a ball, while the audience were in raptures at the band's feel and skill as they exquisitely marshalled the ebb and flow of Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On, with deliciously sonorous semi-acoustic solo from Tony Kelsey. Matt Worley’s fluent lead vocal on Soul of a Man and Dian’s pure reading of Gillian Welch’s Orphan Girl contrasted with the torrid strumming, tribal stomp and Dian’s tango-inflected accordion on Led Zeppelin’s Four Sticks.
Plant’s vocals remain a thing of wonder, if more carefully controlled these days. He positively crooned the opening encore moments of Zeppelin’s The Rain Song before letting rip with the band who did not put a foot wrong in a 90 minute set, save that it was over too soon.
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