Laugardalsholl, Rekjavik, Ireland
Set-List:
Another Tribe, Heartbreaker, Shine It All Around, Black Dog, Freedom Fries, That’s The Way, Tin Pan Valley, Takamba, Gallows Pole, Mighty Rearranger, When The Levee Breaks
Encores: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, The Enchanter, Whole Lotta Love
Reviews:
This from Óskar Gunnarsson
Went to see Mr. Plant yesterday at Laugardalshöll where Led Zeppelin played about 35 years ago. For those who want to see how Laugardalshöll looks like, you can see it in the menu of the new Zep DVD (the black&white clip where a little kid looks into the camera in an eery way).
The 56 years old legend arrived early in Iceland to be able to see Icelands scenery (and boy was he lucky with the weather :o) ) The 2 major tv stations did a short interview with him (one of which is viewable online at www.led-zeppelin.com in the news section)
Anyways, on to the concert, Me and a friend arrived at 19:30 and waited for about a quarter to see the warmup band start to play. Warmup band was called “Ske”, which is a local band that I´ve hardly heard of before.
Sharply at 21:00 Plant and his band stepped on to the podium, although the intro music (which is a remix of Shine It All Around) was a bit too long for my taste.
Their first song was Another Tribe and I was very pleased with the arrangement. A bit of a chilled beginning if you compare with Page&Plant concert beginnings from the late 90s. But then again this is not Page&Plant and I liked the stripped down eastern atmosphere they were providing.
Their first Zep cover was then Heartbreaker, and boy was that good. Clearly we were about to receive major rearrangements in the Zep songs, although the main riff appeared throughout the song. By then I had great admiration towards the band. Justin Adams was clearly not hiding, swinging and turning with his guitar.
After playing Shine It All Around they took Black Dog, with a riff very similar to the original but very fresh; that was actually my impression on RP & Strange Sensation….. fresh(!)
Robert Plant didn´t introduce Freedom Fries (hmm, I wonder if it is intentionally put after Black Dog, because its structure is a bit similar), but after the song he did the infamous President Blair speech I´ve read about in previous reviews (although I know he´s the Prime Minister), adding that the rythm of the song is similar to the movements of a camel, and that´s why it describes Pr. Blair, because he´s moves in funny ways, having many feet following him (sorry If I’m not saying this right, but you get the overall idea :o) ) Well, after that rather funny political complaint they went on to play That´s The Way; there´s only one way to play that song and that´s the way they played it 🙂
Next was the awesome song Tin Pin Valley, which was just simply amazing!! John Baggott proved himself there. And of course we received a few plantations by the time “Like this…” came along. The Tall Cool One-esque song Takamba has an amazing rythm and nice guitar work from Justin. After that song they began playing something I didn´t recognize, which turned out to be another new arrangement of an old Zep Song, this time it was Gallows Pole, but still I preferred the Unplugged version. If I remember correctly Mighty Rearranger featured Plant on harmonica, whereafter he made a joke about “sucking and blowing”, blowing then lightly a few times into the microphone. He was clearly in a good
mood. Btw, check out the similarities in The Enchanter and Mighty Rearranger (the riff). Levee was very nice; always liked the drumming style of Clive Deamer.
The band played then 3 encore songs, and it was stunning, that´s how good it was! Plant came back on stage with the Icelandic flag and was waving it around, which ignited at big cheer from the crowd. Babe was similar to Page&Plant rearrangements. The Enchanter is one of the best songs from the new album, and was absolutely amazing live.
Throughout the concert people were screaming “Immigrant Song”, which, like most fans know, is a tribute to Iceland (during Zeps 1970 visit), also confirmed by the writer himself in the interview I mentioned earlier. Although it would have been nice to hear the song, Plant sang the lyrics over the Whole Lotta Love blues lick of Adam, which gave the gig a nice “cherry on top”. And of course they ended with Whole Lotta Love. I had seen them do that song in the VH1 Storytellers, but
there they ended the song prematurely, skipping the “lloooOOOOOVEEEEe….!!!” part. Expecting that skip, Plant surprised me, since that part was not skipped yesterday and confirmed the crowd that he still can commit those plantations:)
So overall I was very pleased with the performance, it exceeded my expectations greatly and I hope they come back again. At least he did say so in the end 🙂
I didn´t take a camera with me, but 10 pictures are available at this link:
http://www.mbl.is/mm/folk/myndasyrpa.html?album=85&img=1994
http://www.mbl.is/mm/folk/myndasyrpa.html?album=85&img=2005
(Næsta mynd ->) means Next Picture.
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