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Robert Plant Presents…….Sensational Space Shifters – Sydney, AUSTRALIA – Entertainment Centre

28 March 2013 6,943 views No Comment

414776 Picture Simon Cross

Pic by Simon Cross

Robert Plant Presents…….Sensational Space Shifters – Sydney, AUSTRALIA – Entertainment Centre

Setlist:

Tin Pan Valley, Another Tribe, Friends, Spoonful, Black Dog, Going to California, The Enchanter, What Is And What Should Never Be, Heartbreaker, Four Sticks, Funny in My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ to Die), Whole Lotta Love

Encores: Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, Rock and Roll.

This report from Bill McGlynn:

Just returned from the Plant and Space Shifters show in Sydney. As a life-long fan, I was more than impressed! Highlights were ‘What is & What Should Never Be  and Going To California. What is replaced Ramble On, from previous setlists on this tour. It started with Tin Pan and Heartbreaker was later.
He certainly more than still has IT, in voice and stage presence!
He looked (from the back stalls) and moved like 20+ years younger than his age.
The crowd response was warm to begin with and was hot by the end. Thousands on their feet for the final numbers. Bron-Yr-Stomp and Rock And Roll.
They are such a well balanced act, especially with Juldeh getting involved.
Not many in the audience below 40 years of age.
Robert was generous with the between song talk and this further stoked the crowd. I liked the intro before What is.. about jazz in the key of E!
I will be seeing Robert two times more this weekend and from the front row (Byron Bay and Newcastle).

Robert Plant  Entertainment Centre, March 28 – The Voice Of Zeppelin Shines

Taken from www.smh.com.au

You might be excused for thinking that Robert Plant has some “issues”, either with his past or with his past band, that little beat combo Led Zeppelin. After all, much to the consternation of his band mates (and many promoters with big, big dollar signs in their eyes) he refused to play more Zeppelin shows after their astonishingly good 2007 one-off reformation show. Instead he went on to make a second album of Americana/folk (the excellent Band Of Joy which followed on from the Grammy-winning Raising Sand) and talked, as ever, about moving on.

However, this tour with his band the Sensational Shape Shifters has him promoted as “the voice of Zeppelin”, with the poster a boldly colourful interpretation of his classic golden god look of the 1970s, and the set list has no tracks from those two Americana albums but is dominated by Zeppelin songs. What’s going on?

What’s going on is further proof that Plant is far more imaginative, playful and adventurous than any cliche of a clumping old rocker, a man who’s absorbed all the music he’s loved and played and sought out the musicians to explore that. For a start he has a band capable of power when needed but the flexibility and talent to glide from African rhythms to Arabic shapes to Moog-enhanced electronica and down into the blues via American roots. Bass player Billy Fuller, drummer Dave Smith, keyboardist and sound manipulator John Baggott and lead guitarist Skin Tyson offer all that and more, superbly. Then there’s the extra colourings added by guitarist/producer Justin Adams, whose knowledge of African music is immeasurable, and Gambian Juldeh Camara, mostly on the bowed, two-stringed riti and occasionally on keening vocals.

In their hands Black Dog was slinky and curvaceous before becoming an almost spiritual moment as Camara’s voice took it high and Whole Lotta Love reconfigured itself as the solo was played on that incongruous but oddly perfect riti; Friends had the smell of the hookah about it while Four Sticks was heavy modern psychedelia in the mould of At The Drive-In); Going To California felt like Joni Mitchell backed by the Beatles playing folk while Bukka White’s Funny In My Mind was hyper-muscular rockabilly; jazz topped and tailed What Is And What Should Never Be and Heartbreaker devolved into a compelling, swirling Can-like groove.

Although Plant joked that the audience deserved a reward for an evening playing “spot the tune” in the manner of modern Bob Dylan audiences – not the first or last self-mocking gag he delivered – the truth was the majority of the room lapped it up. This was invigorating and anything but predictable, a reward in itself. If his hints of a Zeppelin tour next year are fulfilled, well, fantastic, but here was more proof that Plant is more than his past.

Going To California

Robert Plant Presents…….Sensational Space Shifters – Sydney

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