Tuesday 20 July 2010

Rock singer Robert Plant takes his `Band of Joy' on the road

"When you're working with Robert you can only rehearse so much and then it doesn't matter anymore because you have to have your eyes glued on him the entire night," guitarist Buddy Miller said in an interview with his tour bandmate, singer-songwriter and guitarist Patty Griffin. "No matter what the arrangement was, he's just all feel."Plant might give a nod or a vocal cue and the band heads off in an unexpected direction. That might be the unifying theme for Plant's latest project, which he calls "an adventure.

His aim for Zeppelin songs like "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Houses of the Holy" is to make them feel like they are "crawling out of the swamp, not coming out of the bordello." "Even the old songs are brand-new," Plant said. "There's nothing being reproduced that's ever been heard the way it's being played now ... it's all different. So we've got a hotbed of about 22 songs, which will grow and grow.

The concerts featured a song each for Miller and Griffin, and Plant has plans to include more songs by the band, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino. He wants a revue feel for the tour, his first headlining performances since the "Raising Sand" tour wrapped 15 months ago."I can feel it without a word spoken and we sing together like crazy," he said. "It's like a rockin' thing. It's like the Andrews Sisters on acid, you know. It's really great — revelatory really. She let's fly. She really lets it go."

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