Tuesday, September 30, 2008

ROBERT PLANT and ALISON KRAUSS at ACL

It goes without saying, this was a highly anticipated show. I love their voices together. Somehow, it works beautifully.
They did several songs from Raising Sand but they also did some songs individually. I thought that dragged the show down. Everybody I talked to afterward felt the same. We wanted to hear the 2 of them together. I would say it was probably 40% solo which was about 40% too much. Also, their band leader, T Bone Burnett, did a song. He said he couldn't get away with playing it everywhere but he could in Austin. We were all thinking the same thing, we're losing precious time here, T Bone. Their set was scheduled for 1 hour and 15 minutes. It's a festival so there is no going on longer than scheduled.
That said, when they were singing together, it was magnificent! Robert Plant is larger than life and when he starts into one of his yowls, mercy! They did a couple of Led Zep songs, including The Battle of Evermore, which was a show stopper! I'll tell ya, I could listen to the 2 of them together, for hours on end.
Lastly, the band is made up of some of the best: Jay Bellerose on drums, Buddy Miller on lead guitar and the aforementioned T Bone Burnett. Jay does some unique drumming, like using shakers to play the drums with, instead of sticks.
All in all, we felt like we made the right choice to hang at the AMD stage all day. Even though they didn't sing together nearly enough, it was worth it to be right there while they were performing together. I sure hope they continue to work/record together in the future.

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