Robert Plant

Robert Plant and his Great Sensations were booked for the Pori Jazz festival on short notice as a replacement to share the bill with a jazzband (forgot the name, tho' they were good), and Robert Cray, who for some reason was thought to be worthy of playing last. Oddly enough, the previous time I saw Robert Cray was at the 1991 Puistoblues Blues Festival in Järvenpää, Finland, and guess who had to play before him: the great, late John Lee Hooker! Well, maybe Finns have something to learn: as was the case then, the audience of roughly 4000 at Pori Jazz Festival were clearly not too enthusiastic about listening to the nice and soothing soul blues of Robert Cray after getting what they had come there for in the first place, i.e. Robert Plant.

My expectations weren't too great to begin with: he appeared at the Järvenpää Puistoblues festival with Priory of Brion last year, and those who were able to go said it'd been "OK". The charisma, the voice and the idiosyncratic theatricality had been more or less in evidence, but something had been missing. And as "OK" is not something one should settle for in the case of an icon like Robert Plant, I knew that in order for this concert to be great instead of OK Plant would have to showcase at least some traces of the drive he had back in good old Zeppelin days. And, to my surprise, he did.

The show started with some Howling Wolf blues that kept us in anticipation of what to come. (At this point I don't have a complete set list (to be provided later). The first song as far as I can recall was Crawlin' Kingsnake, possibly with some Milkcow blues mixed here and there.) It sounded great and the band got a big enthusiastic round of applause from the audience. But next came something that, not having read any previous concert reviews about his new band, I had not expected: In the Light from Physical Graffiti. The audience immediately recognized the song that really tuned us in to the rest of the concert. Robert's voice was strong as ever, even though I thought he was somewhat economical with it in some of the highest parts. This was soon followed by a tribute to John Lee Hooker: In the Mood. Now one could argue that there really isn't a reason to play an old standard like In the Mood. Well, in most cases this would be the case, but not with Robert Plant: he added his own, unique touch to the song, making it original and gripping. If I remember correctly, the next song was none other than "Babe, I'm gonna leave you", which for me (and I guess for many many other Zep fans) is the ultimate blues song, and one which epitomizes all the nuances of Robert Plant's use of his powerful voice. I simply couldn't believe my ears. Pure ecstasy. If only it had lasted... (Skip the next paragraph if you are only interested in the music, what follows is just my unfortunate encounter with a lunatic.)

Behind me (I had been able to elbow myself right behind the press photographers) I heard a woman ask me, "Could you please change places with me?! Robert is the love of my life and I just have to get a good look at him. Please!" Well, that broke the ice and I let her through. Next thing I knew she was frantically waving and stomping and continuously SCREAMING "Stairway to Heaven! Stairway to Heaven!" like a lunatic right in the middle of the emotion-laden silent parts of Babe I'm gonna leave you". Or then she was commenting to Robert loudly with pure nonsense. Well, needless to say, I was a bit turned off. Nor was she anywhere near giving back my place or quieting down. It got to a point where I lost most of the concert arguing with her about whether or not she should simply just shut up. So I went back to get some more film, hoping she'd gone away. After I had finally squeezed my way back to the same spot (having tricked everybody into believing I was just going to take one photo...) I found her gone, only to be questioned by girls nearby about why I kept abusing my WIFE! She had told everybody around her that I was her abusive husband, for crying out loud! It took some time to assure the angry ladies that I had never seen her in my life. Well, they calmed down and I was able to enjoy the rest of the show.

Hey Joe was a really interesting and refreshing arrangement, and Four Sticks got us all rocking like teenagers. (I'm 34, and at times I really felt like one, something that does not happen too often these days). Then the band went off and came back surprisingly fast to treat us to Whole Lotta Love, the first encore . Robert had no trouble with even the highest parts and the whole venue was like a battle field. The arrangement offered us some nice surprises too, which only shows that this was not really any Eagles-style oldies-but-goldies revival: he had something new to offer to the old songs he'd probably grown tired of, and that justified his including the Zep material in the set list. And not for a moment did I feel he was only doing it for us, it was obvious he enjoyed it a lot too. The audience called the band back and for a minute I was hoping, like I guess most of us there, that he'd do THAT song. But, instead, the band gave us a beautiful slow song to conclude the evening. We tried to get them back but they only came back to bow and declare they'd see us next year. (Needless to say, I'll be there.)

While listening to the song and Robert's soothing voice I could not help feeling relieved about the fact that Stairway was not played. Because that illustrates why Robert Plant cannot be associated with other Rock-dinosaurs like Elton John and Lynyrd Skynyrd, who always deliver the goods, albeit professionally, in the familiar "Best of..." format, providing the listener with neither suspense nor surprise. While listening to Elton John perform last Sunday at Tallinn's Laululava stadium in Estonia, I thought "This is all very nice...well played...like on the record, as expected, but nothing to do with rock and roll." By contrast, Robert still rocks, and delivers, with inventiveness and dignity.