Robert Plant @ Jazz Fest 2014

[Rock Historian]

Robert Plant will be performing once again at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest) this year. April 26th, 2014.

The line-up this year includes an extraordinary list of players, including Eric Clapton, Santana, etc.

This will be Robert's third appearance since 2007.

Can't wait! (schedule and tickets below)

http://www.festivalarchive.com/event/new-orleans-jazz-heritage-festival-2014/

[luvlz2]

Did I read that right? $50 for 10 days with the Standard Package and that includes Robert Plant and anyone else playing in those 10 days?

[Susan Gibson]

It's $50 for one day. Got my tickets last week.

[DropDown]

Robert will also be playing two dates in Italy in July, the 11th in Pistoia and the 14th near Padova. Got my ticket for July 11th.

http://www.ticketone.it/biglietti.html?affiliate=ITT&fun=search&action=search&doc=search%2Fsearch&detailadoc=erdetaila&detailbdoc=evdetailb&kudoc=artist&sort_by=score&sort_direction=desc&fuzzy=yes&suchbegriff=Robert+plant

[Da Hammer]

Will be there! So nice to see him playing at Jazz fest this often.

[clw]

so wish I was near

[Rock Historian]

I've posted this in the New Orleans thread a while back in the Ramble On section. (with complete link to artist, etc.)

This is Plants only North American date for this particular tour, as of now.

I feel fortunate that I get to witness this and see him again ( twice within a 7 month period).

He was just here late last year and this is his 3rd Jazz Fest appearance since 2007.

I'll be sure to take some pics and vids and post them here as time permits. Looking to get a good spot and camp out early when the gates open-not to lose our spot once we claim it....if all goes well. Should be a great day. I'm so excited...and lucky.

Till next time- see Ya'll !

[Ddladner]

Day #1 Jazzfest...Santana was awesome! Very energetic and all band members are very talented. Didn't catch who came in as a guest drummer but she was on fire! Her drum solo was so fun to watch!! My first sight walking through the gates was a 'zeppelin' in the sky...and you know what I was thinking!!!! Robert Plant tomorrow and Eric Clapton on Sunday. Not a bad weekend!!

[Ddladner]

I'll be there, as well! Can't wait!! Just posted a few Santana pics in a similar thread.

Edit: Threads have now been combined,,,thanks, Sam!

[Cookie0024]

Photos from around the web of Robert and the band in New Orleans today. Please check @LedZepNews on Twitter for full photo credits.

And here are some videos:

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You:

http://instagram.com/p/nRTwSvw477/

Black Dog:

https://vine.co/v/MvOd2aV9nHn

Going To California:

http://instagram.com/p/nRVpOhgBlQ

http://instagram.com/p/nRV_B_AG-0/

http://instagram.com/p/nRVoFEpaHD/

Known setlist so far:

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Spoonful

Black Dog

Going To California

The Enchanter

Tin Pan Valley

Whole Lotta Love

Rock And Roll

[Ross62]

^ ^

[luvlz2]

Sounded good, the little clips that I heard, thanks!

[Ddladner]

Thank you, Robert Plant, for coming all the way from England to play at Jazzfest...you made this lady very happy today!!!!!! Still rockin' the LZ songs, and the crowd showed much love for each one! Adding to the setlist posted above is Bron-Y-Aur Stomp and What Is and What Should Never Be. Awesome show!! ❤️

[Rock Historian]

Photos from around the web of Robert and the band in New Orleans today. Please check @LedZepNews on Twitter for full photo credits.

And here are some videos:

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You:

http://instagram.com/p/nRTwSvw477/

Black Dog:

https://vine.co/v/MvOd2aV9nHn

Going To California:

http://instagram.com/p/nRVpOhgBlQ

http://instagram.com/p/nRV_B_AG-0/

http://instagram.com/p/nRVoFEpaHD/

Known setlist so far:

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Spoonful

Black Dog

Going To California

The Enchanter

Tin Pan Valley

Whole Lotta Love

Rock And Roll

Cookie...those are some AMAZING photos!! Thank You so much for sharing.

So, we just got home about an hour ago, and I'll do my best to give a brief/accurate summary of the show.

To add onto your setlist: "Tin Pan Valley" was played second, "Fixin to Die" was in the latter half, "Big Log" and "What is and What should Never Be" as well.

This setlist was basically the same exact one from 7 months prior when I saw him @ Mahailia Jackson Theatre.

I have to be completely honest about what I saw and heard:

I felt that it was a good show but not as enthusiastic or energetic as the one last year.

The band had a few misques throughout and just seemed to lack something IMO. Maybe just tired from the long overseas trip?

People in spaces started to leave in the middle of Black Dog which was the third or fourth song played. I expected this because it happened at Jazz Fest 3 years ago.

Like I told my wife....some people just don't "get it". It's not 1972 any longer and if Plant wanted to remain "heavy", then the Zeppelin would be flying high again, so on and so on.

Robert's solo career has proven that he is about change, pushing limits and being unpredictable, much like his former bands catalouge.

To the one's that left, I say the hell with em'. They don't understand, so there's no use in trying to explain.

On a side note: My wifes cousin was working backstage for the event (employee for Jazz Fest).

She came and hung out with us for Plant's performance. She offered me her pass to go get on the side of the stage but I was content where I was at this time.

She told us that Robert was getting 1 million dollars for this single performance...Bruce Springsteen, 1.1 Million.

Crazy!

She said that all of the Jazz Fest artist were staying/booked at the Sheraton Hotel..(pretty good info).

However, I'm so worn out from the day, I can't muster up enough energy or courage to go and stalk him...maybe next time..LOL

Yet, I did wind up getting a free pass for the day tomorrow (from her), so I hope to catch Clapton if all goes well.

Getting back to it- I was happy to see him. His voice sounded really good. As best as it can for this day in age.

The man sings with so much conviction, it gives me goosebumps. He could sing nursery rhymes in the shower and sound like gold.

To sum it up, he was good. I've heard him sound better but he always delivers in a way that makes me come back for more.

The band sounded less energetic than him surprisingly enough. Aside from two blistering blues tunes, the two guitarist never really knocked me out, and that could be the fault of the soundmen or "man". They were not up a great deal in the mix, which took away from some of the potential power of the performance. I suppose I have mixed reviews, but all in all I'm so happy and priviledged to have seen him again.

He did mention that the new album will be in stores on September 19th. Looking forward to what he called "fucking great"!

[Deborah J]

^^Cookie, nice photos! Thanks for posting:-)

^^RH, nice write up and glad you had a great time...as well as anyone else who attended. I knew Bombino was playing at House of Blues Friday night and I was not sure if Robert was going to show up? Great line up again this year.

Edit to add: AXS will be showing Jazz Fest:

[Deborah J]

Great close up video of GTC:-) A lot have just been posted in the last few hours on you tube:-)

Edit to add; In The Mood:-)

^^Thanks to Suzanne McElyea for the video. She has a lot of Robert and Santana:-)

[Deborah J]

The Gambit:

Saturday at Jazz Fest POSTED BY WILL COVIELLO ON SAT, APR 26, 2014 AT 10:00 PM

• Robert Plant performs with the Sensational Space Shifters.

Half-way through Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters' set at Jazz Fest, Plant shared that he initially was skeptical about making the trip from England to play the event, because the band didn't have other U.S. gigs lined up. Plant said that New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival producer Quint Davis told him, "Just come."

The band obviously did that, and if recent trips to New Orleans or performances with Alison Krauss at the festival didn't influence his decision, other memories may have. Plant said Led Zeppelin had a great time in New Orleans in the 1970s and had parties in which Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Snooks Eaglin played for them. The band also traveled to Clarksdale, Miss., where members tried to connect with some of the bluesmen who influenced them and a wave of British musicians. That was a segue way into playing "Fixing to Die" by Booker White (aka Bukka White). And the Space Shifters played a few old blues tunes in-between Zeppelin tunes, notably "Whole Lotta Love." There once was controversy over whether that song was similar to a Muddy Waters song. On stage Saturday, however, Plant seemed to make another connection, as It seems "Whole Lotta Love" shares a lyric from one of the blues tunes the Space Shifters covered.

The Space Shifters' set was full of Zeppelin songs, most played with a hard and often psychedelic edge. A bit lighter was a cover of Plant's "I'm in the Mood," but several songs featured Juldeh Camara, a Gambian musician, leading on a ritti, essentially a one-string fiddle.

At the Congo Square Stage, everyone in the crowd seemed to know the lyrics when Big Freedia performed "Gin in my System" and his version of "Rock Around the Clock." Freedia invited a host of guests on stage for "Azz Everywhere" and Freedia decided to keep some of the performers on stage for a competition, which the audience loved.

• Big Freedia discusses his career with Peggy Scott Laborde.

There was less talk of azz and gin earlier in the day at the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, where Freddia was interviewed by WYES' Peggy Scott Laborde. While the question of "twerking" and Miley Cyrus came up, as it has often since Cyrus' attempt at tweaking at the Video Music Awards, Freedia's response has been pretty consistent: Freedia says he's tired of talking about Cyrus ("I'm over tweaking"), and then he noted that the two met when Cyrus performed in New Orleans recently. And they got their dancers together to share moves. But Freedia says it was a lopsided exchange. "We didn't get anything from them."

On other subjects, Freedia is enjoying her success as her Fuse TV show is about to begin its second season ("I'm becoming a household name."). Is national TV making her change her music to be more mainstream, Laborde asked. Freedia says no. "Some of the world is ready for me. Some of it not. But Big Freedia comes."

Also making a play at some TV notoriety, Kermit Ruffins played to a field packed to the Jazz Fest "Ancestors" markers, and he invited the crowd to follow him to the Mother-In-Law Lounge for barbecue just before he launched into his version of John Boutte's "Treme Song."

In the Economy Hall Tent, Tom Sancton and his New Orleans Legacy Band played traditional jazz, notably including songs by Sancton's mentor George Lewis. When the band struck up Lewis' "Over the Waves," a second-line looped continuously through the aisles. The crowd there perhaps skews older, but most have the right bounce in their step and wave their mini-umbrellas and handkerchiefs in rhythm. Sancton teased them a bit, saying that if he'd known everyone wanted to waltz, he'd have played "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi." That did little to stop those still second-lining.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2014/04/26/saturday-at-jazz-fest

[Deborah J]

The New Orleans ADVOCATE Rock meets West African strings in Robert Plant set

FORMER LED ZEPPELIN FRONTMAN PLAYS ONE-OFF SET SATURDAY

BY JOHN WIRT

JWIRT@THEADVOCATE.COM

April 27, 2014

0 Comments

British rock star Robert Plant and his latest band, the Sensational Space Shifters, moved from heavy rock to spacey audio exploration Saturday at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

The show featured a generous number of the classic rock songs that Plant recorded when he was Led Zeppelin’s frontman, plus songs by Chicago blues star Howlin’ Wolf and the Mississippi Delta’s Bukka White and, presumably, music from a forthcoming album by Plant and the Space Shifters.

Plant reached all the way back to “Led Zeppelin I” for his first song at the Samsung Galaxy Stage. The thunder and butterfly contrast in “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” was a sign of things to come. Guitarist Liam “Skin” Tyson plucked acoustic guitar arpeggios in the song’s soft bits between abrupt bursts of guitar and percussion.

From the opening song on, the 65-year-old Plant was in strong, distinctive voice, occasionally wielding his mic stand like the rock star he is.

“Hey! Hey!” he said after the band’s opening number. “Let’s go!”

Plant and the Space Shifters proceeded to transform Howlin’ Wolf’s already atmospheric “Spoonful” into heavy, moody blues. A West African influence entered the song when Juddeh Camara, a Space Shifter from Gambia, soloed with his one-string African violin.

Camara moved to an instrument that’s obviously an ancestor of the American banjo for a reinvention of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” that morphed into a trance-rock jam.

Another blues classic, “Seventh Son,” segued into a long tease by Plant and the band for a full-blown version of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

The Space Shifters are a band that combines West Africa and the Middle East with the American South and the Delta blues that inspired Plant and his peers when they were kids back in England.

Plant and his Led Zeppelin cohorts, as well as a generation of their English musician peers — including Eric Clapton, who performs at Jazz Fest on Sunday — transformed American music from the South into their own louder, faster, wilder expression. And Plant hasn’t stopped. He informed his audience that his Jazz Fest show is a one-off gig, for which he traveled 5,674 miles. And he won’t have much time to enjoy New Orleans, a city he loves, because he’s leaving Sunday.

He also changed the lyrics to a Zeppelin classic, “Going to California,” singing, “I’m going to Louisiana with an ache in my heart.”

Plant couldn’t resist recalling riverboat parties he experienced back in the day, featuring music by such local music stars as Earl King, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Snooks Eaglin.

Odds are he’ll be back again to rock some more.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/home/9012743-172/classic-rock-meets-west-african

[Ddladner]

Great posts, Cookie, Rock Historian and Deborah J!! As this was my first time to see Robert Plant, I will treasure the photos, videos and articles to help relive a special memory! With RP's comments like 'Zero', I really had low expectations about if/how he would include LZ songs in his set. I was very pleased that RP honored his past by singing many LZ songs with conviction. RP was in great spirits, and his love for New Orleans was evident. He even gave a shout out to Mississippi...yay!! Listening to how great he sang the LZ songs, 'it really makes me wonder'!!

[Cookie0024]

Here's a YouTube playlist of every song Robert played last night, filmed by Suzanne, who was super-close to the stage. I've ordered the videos by what I know of last night's setlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvpRjHmDyBkY2MEU5rhm1hCFZJYbY3WB0

[Deborah J]

Robert Plant conjured old and new ghosts at the 2014 New Orleans Jazz Fest

By Keith Spera, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Email the author | Follow on Twitter

on April 26, 2014 at 9:12 PM, updated April 27, 2014 at 9:08 AM

Robert Plant shouldn't have been at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. He and his Sensational Space Shifters have been recording a new album in England, with no plans to tour.

But as Plant explained during his closing set Saturday (April 26) at the Samsung Galaxy Stage, Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis kept calling, urging him to bring the band to the festival. Davis -- and, undoubtedly, a sizable check -- persuaded them to, in Plant's estimation, travel 5,674 miles for a single show.

The trip was worth the trouble. The Golden God of yore is grayer now. On Saturday, his lavender shirt was sensibly unbuttoned, but he flaunted a pair of decidedly rock 'n' roll pointed-toe boots. He prowled the stage with a predatory glint in his eyes. And his clenched howl is still remarkably, and gloriously, intact.

He reportedly was the lone holdout to a Led Zeppelin reunion that would have been the highest grossing tour of all time. He prefers to chart his own course down roads less traveled, specifically the back-country trails that lead to forgotten corners of Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and ramshackle bars in New Orleans' Bywater neighborhood. Thus, on Saturday, he and the Space Shifters exhumed a meditation by high-lonesome Kentucky folk singer Roscoe Holcomb and bluesman Bukka White's grim "Fixin' to Die."

Not that Plant is above circling back around to familiar haunts. But when he raids the Zeppelin catalog, it is to mine it for fresh material. "It's great to keep changing it and turning it around," he said. "Here's one of them songs."

By "them songs," he meant, of course, a nugget culled from one of rock's great canons. A ringing acoustic guitar and mandolin ushered in a faithful "Going to California," recast as "going to Louisiana" for Jazz Fest.

The "big-legged woman" of "Black Dog," by contrast, was almost unrecognizable; that particular Zeppelin warhorse was disassembled and draped in the droning of a traditional African stringed instrument that sounded like a violin. "Tin Pan Valley," from his 2005 album "Mighty ReArranger," actually rocked harder. Spooky slide guitar haunted "The Enchanter," from the same album.

He dug back even further in his solo catalog for "In the Mood," from his 1983 album "The Principal of Moments." The mood of that song, and album, released just three years after Zeppelin's demise, clearly signaled that he was not interested in mimicking his former band's heavy/light dynamic.

He spun a tale about a favorite blue-eyed dog that accompanied him in the Welsh mountains many years ago. The dog was afraid of water, "so I had to carry the bloody thing everywhere." Nonetheless, he loved the dog, in part because it "didn't remind me of anyone I was hiding out from." In thanks, Plant "wrote a song about him with some old friends. It's a good afternoon song, especially with the smell in the air."

With that, the Sensational Space Shifters broke into "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp," a highlight of Zeppelin's acoustic-minded third album. The drummer's strikes on his floor toms put the "stomp" in the song.

With no warning, Plant casually slipped into the lyric, "If I say to you tomorrow," the opening line of Zeppelin's "What Is and What Should Never Be." It turned out to be the most faithfully reproduced of his old band's classics -- and thrillingly so -- right down to the swinging rhythm tapped out on a ride cymbal during the verse, and a fully amped coda.

The music of New Orleans enthralled Plant as a boy in England. In Zeppelin's glory years, he and his bandmates indulged their fondness for the city by throwing lavish parties. Such local legends as Snooks Eaglin, Earl King and Gatemouth Brown performed, Plant recalled fondly. "What a gas. What a town. What a bunch of people."

The six Space Shifters illuminated his explorations or cast them in shadows, from the African roots of the blues to rock 'n' roll. Guitarist Justin Adams electrified "Fixin' to Die." The whole band engaged in a dirty blues vamp; Plant inserted exclamations that soon came into focus as something quite familiar: "Don't you mess with me....because you need coolin'...ohh, back to schoolin'...cause way down inside...."

With that, "Whole Lotta Love" sprang fully to life, inducing chills and whoops of approval from the vast crowd. They detoured into Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" before the African violin brought them back to "Whole Lotta Love."

For the encore, Plant proposed they render "an English folk song that we carry around in a little box. Sometimes it peeks out." This "sea shanty," he said, comes with "a sense of humor."

The "folk song" turned out to be "Rock 'n' Roll," dressed up with droning violin and fuzz-tone keyboards. Once and for all, Plant reaffirmed that his bark still has its bite; his "eww, yeah!" exclamations harkened way, way back. During a brief bout of boogie-woogie piano, he exclaimed, "Suck it!" then grinned like a schoolboy caught being naughty.

He finished with a plug for the band's just-completed album, due Sept. 8. It'll be in all the record stores, he noted, before remembering, "Oh, there aren't none."

He had caught himself in a rare moment of nostalgia.

Keith Spera can be reached at kspera@nola.com or 504.826.3470. Follow him on Twitter @KeithSpera.

http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/index.ssf/2014/04/robert_plant_conjured_old_and.html

[nirvana]

Some people may be pissed off at Robert for his anti-Zep stance and his "Zero-theory" for any reunion plans

however - no one can deny Robert's sense of exploration and musical journey. The guy is relentless in his pursuit

of the "new melody".

My only complaint is that his set list really hasn't varied over the last couple years with the SSS. With all the songs

at his disposal and a musical mind like an encyclopedia - we still get "Black Dog", WLL, and RnR...etc.

The new song, don't know the title yet, sounds really good and it reminds us all that Robert really does need a new

tune to keep his audience excited.

Supposedly the new SSS album drops in September. Can't wait!

[kenticus]

i do wish that for once when robert gets interviewed that someone would point out when he talks about not wanting to reunite zeppelin and how it's a thing of the past, he can't relate to the lyrics, etc. that he still plays these songs as the vast majority of his setlists in his live shows. Yes, they're different takes on an old thing, but I mean it's almost like having your cake and eating it to in terms of using the old stuff in live shows, but then saying you can't relate to it and can't imagine playing it with the other guys again.

Here's to hoping that him and the sensational space shifters roll out a new, heavier record than he's done the past few years as they are more of a rock band than the band of joy...

[SuperDave]

Thanks RH, Cookie and Debs for all the photos, videos and press reviews.

Sounds like you had a great time at Jazzfest RH. I watched a few bits of videos and the show was a bit more restrained than when I saw him in Brooklyn last summer. Still seems like a good show and the band was in good form and Robert in fine voice.

[luvlz2]

I like it

Thanks Suzanne McElyea for posting this on youtube