Robert Plant joining Lampedusa Concert For Refugees Tour in October

[sam_webmaster]

Lampedusa Concert for Refugees

In October 2016, artists are uniting for Lampedusa Concerts for Refugees to raise awareness of the unprecedented worldwide refugee crisis with a tour across 11 North American cities. Robert will join for select dates of the tour.

 Robert Plant has confirmed that he will join Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, The Milk Carton Kids, and more for select dates (12/10-21/10) on the Lampedusa Concerts For Refugees tour. Lampedusa is an 11-stop concert tour intended to raise awareness of the unprecedented worldwide refugee crisis. Funds raised by Lampedusa will support educational programs for refugees around the world.

“This is a humanitarian issue — it is not a political issue,” says Griffin. “These are real people with real needs and it’s not going to go away and we have to deal with these issues in a realistic way, and realism has to do with compassion.”

Plant offered this statement about joining the tour.

“I'm taking a break from recording the new Sensational Space Shifters record to be a part of this very important and worthwhile cause. When I watch the news and see people from these places being displaced by hatred and ignorance, I know that these people are just like you and me. All they want is to live in peace and have their children grow up loved, fed and educated. That seems a million miles away for many people at the moment. They are living in refugee camps, in conditions that are far below sustenance levels. When I heard that some of my friends were rallying to do a series of concerts to help raise funds and awareness, to help address the basic needs of food, shelter and medical care, I wanted to help, in whatever way I could. One thing that I want to make clear: as with all the other members of this tour, I will be performing two or three songs a night and no more. I’m not making a political statement. The organization that is receiving these funds is a religious one. This appeal is trying to help on the ground wherever it can. I hope that my voice, along with my friends, helps bend the arc of the universe a little more toward the loving and helps with the work of getting the basic essentials of life to those who are without.”

The complete tour dates are below. The shows featuring Plant are noted.

6 - Boulder Theater in Boulder, CO 
8 - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, MO 
9 - Rococo Theater in Lincoln, NE 
11 - Sheldon Concert Hall, St. in Louis, MO 
12 - Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, WI  -  w/Robert Plant
13 - Vic Theater in Chicago, IL -  w/ Robert Plant
14 - Massey Hall in Toronto, ON - w/Robert Plant
16 - Berklee Perfomance Center in Boston, MA - w/Robert Plant
18 - The Town Hall in New York, NY -  w/Robert Plant
19 - Merriam Theater in Philadelphia, PA - w/Robert Plant
21 - Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC - w/Robert Plant

The concerts will be intimate evenings of acoustic performances benefiting Jesuit Refugee Service's Global Education Initiative. The Lampedusa tour helps displaced people heal, learn, and thrive by providing educational opportunities for refugees living in camps and urban settings in 45 countries. “Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees” is named for the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where Pope Francis visited refugees during his first official trip as Pope. The Italian island off the coast of Sicily serves as a waypoint to Europe in refugees’ search for safety and security.

More info + tickets:
http://jrsusa.org/campaigns_focus?TN=PROMO-20160707043431

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[ebk]

Thanks for this - just got tickets to the DC show!

[Boleskinner]

* note: Robert Plant will be performing ;-)

[Strider]

Of all the weekends Plant has to pick to play L.A. he picks this weekend, which is already booked solid. So for the first time in forever, I will miss a Robert Plant concert in Los Angeles.

Sam, I don't know why your schedule has Plant in Kansas City on October 8 when my concert calendar says he is playing David Lynch's Festival at the Ace Theatre in L.A. on that day.

[Walter]

It looks to me like the date listed for the 8th is the other acts only.  In bold were the dates with Plant.

[luvlz2]

8 hours ago, Strider said:

Of all the weekends Plant has to pick to play L.A. he picks this weekend, which is already booked solid.

Yeah, I was checking out information on the Festival Of Disruption about a month ago, and saw that it was sold out then. Hope you can still get your way into that Strider.

[Strider]

5 hours ago, Walter said:

It looks to me like the date listed for the 8th is the other acts only.  In bold were the dates with Plant.

Ok...wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying.

1 hour ago, luvlz2 said:

Yeah, I was checking out information on the Festival Of Disruption about a month ago, and saw that it was sold out then. Hope you can still get your way into that Strider.

No, I meant I already had other shows and events scheduled for this weekend that I cannot get out of, so that is why I can't go to Robert Plant. It's ok...I have seen him well over 30 times by now and I have seen every other act on the bill.

[sam_webmaster]

A great time yesterday... Daniel Lanois was also a special guest.

[luvlz2]

 

[sam_webmaster]

https://aestheticmagazinetoronto.com/2016/10/15/photos-lampedusa-emmylou-harris-robert-plant-ron-sexsmith-steve-earle-toronto/

 

[thozil]

 

[ebk]

If anyone is interested, on SiriusXM Outlaw Country, Steve Earle is having the folks, including Mr. Plant, on his show this hour.  

[sam_webmaster]

Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant and more put on a spectacular refugee benefit

 By Stuart Munro Globe Correspondent  October 17, 2016

When it came time for the Milk Carton Kids to play their first song Sunday night, one of the Kids, Joey Ryan, remarked by way of preface, “You’ve already got your money’s worth.”

He was right. And the concert — one of several dates intended to raise awareness of the current refugee crisis, and funds for the programs offered by the Jesuit Refugee Service — was only four songs in.

We’d already heard Emmylou Harris render a piercing “Orphan Girl,” and Robert Plant go Elvis with a version of “Don’t” that featured an incredible gospel doo-wop chorus of his fellow performers. And those turned out to be mere table-setters.

The evening had an unassuming tone from the start. Harris walked out, sat down, and introduced her partners in music as each emerged in turn. Then, all sitting, they played, in-the-round style, for the better part of 2½ hours. It felt like an informal gathering of friends. Discussion of the concert’s purpose was brief and to the point, and came for the most part toward the end of the performance, its sentiment best summed up by Steve Earle simply averring that everyone has a right to a home.

It was an intentionally loose affair, too. Many of the songs were worked up just prior to the performance; Harris noted that she and her cohorts were changing things up every night, and at a couple of points she had a lyric sheet in hand.

But loose never meant sloppy or stumbling. The Milk Carton Kids, who held their own while working their new-kids-on-the-block status to great comic effect, spoke of discovering the “traditional” music of the British Isles, and then launched into a gorgeous, delicate version of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” Harris offered a beautiful acoustic rendition of Merle Haggard’s “Kern River,” Plant a jawdropping cover of Tom Rush’s “No Regrets” and later, a take on the ancient “Little Maggie” that started spectral and morphed into full-blown roar. Buddy Miller then matched that with an anguished “Don’t Tell Me” that twined his and Harris’s singing around his stinging, searing guitar work.

By the time the evening came to a perfectly appropriate close with a repurposed version of Steve Earle’s “Pilgrim,” what had resulted was something quite spectacular: good works begetting great art.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/10/17/emmylou-harris-robert-plant-and-more-put-spectacular-refugee-benefit/0Uyp8C1w7XOriBgfyldBWL/story.html

[zeppcollect]

Thanks for the info news and great pictures.

[sam_webmaster]

Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Joan Baez & more performed at Lampedusa Refugee Benefit at Town Hall  

By Sachyn Mital | brooklynvegan.com

The Lampedusa Refugee Benefit Concert tour, featuring Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Joan Baez, Buddy Miller, The Milk Carton Kids and special vaudeville guest act Nancy and Beth (comprised of Megan Mullally and Stephanie Hunt), passed through Town Hall in New York on Tuesday night (10/18). All the performers sat on the stage at the same time, one by one taking lead of the group — a non-competitive round robin style show.

The two-plus hour event was organized by Harris to support the Jesuit Refugee Service and takes its name from an island off the coast of Sicily through which many refugees and migrants may pass through enroute to Europe. Harris said hadn’t visited Lampedusa but she had been to two refugee camps in Ethiopia. She spoke of the nearly 65 million refugees, or otherwise displaced/migrant people around the world, which amounted to nearly the population of the United Kingdom.

Plant avoided the spotlight by avoiding Led Zeppelin songs, though he did speak of the Milk Carton Kids coming to him in their pajamas to hear tales about the Misty Mountains and hobbits. As Radio.com wrote, “For his part, Plant mostly backed the others by playing a small hand drum with a metal brush. It was a small contribution to the songs that was somehow extraordinary: the singer of one of the most popular rock bands of all time, a guy who could headline Madison Square Garden just a few blocks south, on his own was doing hand percussion… because he wanted to contribute to the tour.”

Nancy and Beth also made the Milk Carton Kids the subject of a joke. Mullally suggested the duo were the Kids’ mail order brides, right after the Kids played “Charlie,” a song for Kenneth Pattengale’s imminent baby, though he first has to have a mother picked out. Nancy and Beth performed a funny and weird act they considered vaudeville and said their first song “100,000 Women Can’t be Wrong” was Trump’s new anthem.

The Milk Carton Kids were the youngest talents on stage but they held their own against the legends to their side and often made the audience laugh as well. Pattengale and the other kid Joey Ryan joked about that few people cover Harris’s songs given they have so many words — five pages of lyrics were on the floor for their cover of “Michelangelo”.

The night’s special guest was Joan Baez who joined everyone on stage for the last three songs. Baez greeted Harris warmly before launching into Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee”. Baez also spoke on the issue of immigration, “My father was a immigrant from Mexico… and he invented the X-ray microscope! It’s not about people who are taking from us, they’re bringing us their gifts!” With her message practically begging people to consider the positives in people, Baez (and Harris, Plant et al.) are turning the politically fraught issue of immigration into a humanitarian one on the Lampedusa tour.

Partial Setlist (Indicates lead artist first though any or all may have contributed)
Steve Earle “You’re the Best Lover That I Ever Had”
Emmylou Harris “Making Believe” (Kitty Wells)
Robert Plant “Don’t” (Elvis Presley)
Buddy Miller “Shelter Me”
Milk Carton Kids “By the Stars”
Earle “Copperhead Road”
Harris “Love Hurts” (Everly Brothers)
Plant “Nothin” (Townes Van Zandt)
Miller “Gasoline and Matches”
Milk Carton Kids “Charlie”
Nancy and Beth “100,000 Women Can’t be Wrong”  [+ one more]
Earle “Goodbye”
Harris “Darlin’ Kate”
Milk Carton Kids “Michaelangelo” (Emmylou Harris)
Earle “City of Immigrants”
Plant “Little Maggie”
Miller “Wide River to Cross”
Milk Carton Kids “The City of Our Lady”
Joan Baez “Deportee” (Woody Guthrie)
Baez “God is God”
Earle “Pilgrims”

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/lampedusa-refugee-benefit-town-hall/

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