Robert Plant & Saving Grace (ft. Suzi Dian)
Thursday, 24 August 2023
Portorož / Avditorij / Slovenia
Robert Plant is one of the essential voices in the story of rock music. His colossal vocal stamp on that story is impossible to sidestep. Plain and simple. He’s one of those — call them the (truly) essential few — who (co-)defined rock at the turn of the sixties into the seventies. Vocally speaking. Never mind that the towering musician has been steering clear of distorted sounds for a long time now, and that especially in the past twenty years he’s made a name for himself as an artist who explores every last corner of world music, venturing as far back into the past as he pleases — where the roots of later rock also lie. His time with Led Zeppelin remains the artistic achievement by which generations first know and revere him. The musical vision of this extraordinary vocalist and artist is so vast that any words you might reach for to capture the great heart and sheer artistic soul of Robert Plant fall far, far short. Something like this demands that a person’s own soul and heart surrender unconditionally to the magnitude of this singular vibration. Only then can you truly connect with Plant’s ever-shifting musical transformation.
The opening of this piece already hinted that everything Plant touches works eclectically — or at the very least carries the unmistakable seeds and potential for eclecticism to bloom. And the latest outfit he’s part of, named Saving Grace, is no exception to that rule. You put Plant’s one-of-a-kind vocal instrument — interpretation included — at the center and build your arrangements around it. The results are utterly astonishing when you later compare the originals with the adaptations, which reach such a level of artistic distinctiveness that you can barely believe the song isn’t actually his own composition. That’s the trick. A trick so intoxicating and irresistible to an artist that it draws out and awakens in him a creative expressionism of the freest possible spirit.
Saving Grace, active since 2019, are: Robert Plant (vocals), Suzi Dian (vocals), Oli Jefferson (percussion, drums), Tony Kelsey (mandolin, baritone and acoustic guitar), and Matt Worley (banjo, acoustic and baritone guitar, cuatro).
The Portorož show — sixteen years after Plant (then with Strange Sensation) last visited Slovenia (he played Titov trg in Koper on 23 July 2007) — was in fact Saving Grace’s first-ever concert on the old continent. Before this, the band had mostly played around the British Isles since 2019, with their last gig there coming in November 2022 in Scotland. After that, Plant headed out on tour with Alison Krauss, wrapping up that run in Canada at the start of July this year.
So keep in mind: the man is in real form, because he’s genuinely out there gigging. Plant, who turned a very respectable 75 just four days before the Portorož show, confirmed that (supposedly) excellent form, backed by immeasurable charisma. Immediately. Right from the opening. Their take on the traditional The Cuckoo in particular instantly confirmed what a brilliantly natural fit his voice is in a duet with Suzi Dian. The sold-out-to-the-last-seat Portorož auditorium greeted the legend and his bandmates with thunderous applause.
Throughout the show, alongside a stellar vocal performance backed by the band’s brilliant chemistry and the vocal partnership with Suzi Dian (running the entire set, but particularly vivid in moments like the aforementioned traditional The Cuckoo, the traditional I Roved Out, and Moby Grape’s It’s A Beautiful Day Today), Plant won over the crowd in a special way by cracking a few quips between songs that sent waves of laughter rolling through the audience. The energy was fantastic, and Plant topped it all off with a great mood for the evening. His voice has undeniably dropped a register over the years — deeper and richer for it — yet the expressive power of his singular instrument remains staggering. It still gives you goosebumps! The sensuality, the delicacy, surrendering to the magic. Letting the vibration of the universe carry you. Plant didn’t hide that dimension one bit. Especially not in moments that leaned heavily on the values of traditional music — everything from Celtic turns, drawing on Irish and Welsh musical traditions, through to moments that reached all the way back to the roots of the blues, like the gospel-sermon Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down. In the outro, the band added a vivid integration of another traditional piece, In My Time Of Dying, which Led Zeppelin themselves had adapted in 1975 for the album “Physical Graffiti”. That’s when you pinch yourself: “No, I’m not dreaming. The man is actually teasing us with Led Zeppelin.” The melody of “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” and Blind Willie Johnson are right there. A brilliant trick.
Speaking of Led Zeppelin… Despite the recent public mud-slinging between Plant and Page, the man hasn’t completely turned his back on that chapter of his career. Very early in the set the band tackled a re-arranged version of the classic Friends, while one of the concert’s clear highlights was the extraordinary The Rain Song — the standout treat of the evening and one of the most powerful compositions Led Zeppelin ever put together. Later in the show, the integration of Four Sticks came as quite a surprise. It’s on record that Led Zeppelin performed that song live exactly once, most likely due to its complexity — the time signature shifts between 5/8 and 6/8. For Saving Grace, no obstacle whatsoever. The Led Zeppelin material rang out triumphantly even in its acoustic setting, further sharpened by folk elements. Right at the finale they added Gallows Pole — a traditional piece that Led Zeppelin once covered too. Plant actually performed Gallows Pole, Friends, and Four Sticks back in 2007 at the Koper show as well!
Robert also spiced up the set with Down To The Sea, drawn from his hugely successful solo album “Fate Of the Nations” (1993). Back in 2007 in Koper, he performed the well-known single 29 Palms from that same album (with Tinkara Kovač alongside him at the time). Ah, nostalgia! Another pleasant surprise came near the end of the show with the band’s take on the Los Lobos original Angel Dance.
Just over an hour and a half, and it was over before you knew it. Robert Plant’s charisma remains colossal. His vocal reach and stamp no less so. The man is an icon. In every sense. And he’s holding up brilliantly — downright stunning for 75! The masterful way he navigates around the high register is remarkable. He’s adapted everything vocally, with complete authority, to his current range, while preserving every last bit of that singular expression his extraordinary vocal portfolio has always carried — the kind that even in 2023 hits you hard and leaves you spellbound. In an acoustic setting, that vocal presence hits even harder. That expressive hunger. And Plant knows it. He knows exactly where music’s roots lie. Not in electricity and the bends of distortion. In the elemental. And that elementality is exactly what Saving Grace, powered by the immeasurable musical greatness of the warm-hearted Robert Plant, delivered in generous measure.
A concert that filled hearts to the brim with intense feeling. Partly down to nostalgia, sure. But above all to the sheer reach of the expression itself. As stated. A raw elementality that very few can match. When Plant’s generation finally hangs it up for good, you’d better keep in mind that a colossal void will open — one in which younger musical generations will have to establish their own claim to that authenticity and elementality of the pioneering generation. Plant is one of its rocky massifs. And he confirmed that with effortless ease in Portorož, with yet another unforgettable concert. Hats off to the legend!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik & Edita Klemen
Photos: Edita Klemen
Setlist:
1. Gospel Plow (orig. Bob Dylan)
2. The Cuckoo (trad.)
3. Let the Four Wind Blow (orig. Robert Plant & Strange Sensation)
4. Friends (orig. Led Zeppelin)
5. Out in the Woods (orig. Leon Russell)
6. Too Far From You (orig. Nashville Cast)
7. Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down (trad.) / In My Time of Dying (orig. Blind Willie Johnson, covered by Led Zeppelin)
8. Everybody’s Song (orig. Low)
9. It’s a Beautiful Day Today (orig. Moby Grape)
10. The Rain Song (orig. Led Zeppelin)
11. Chevrolet (orig. Lonnie Young, Ed Young & Lonnie Young, Jr.)
12. As I Roved Out (trad.)
13. Down to the Sea (orig. Robert Plant)
14. Four Sticks (orig. Led Zeppelin)
15. Angel Dance (orig. Los Lobos)
16. Gallows Pole (trad., also covered by Led Zeppelin)
—encore—
17. And We Bid You Goodnight (trad.)
