Burnett, Krauss & Plant @ The Greek

Clinging to a little patch of, er, grass on the Lawn at the Greek Theater, Berkeley in the cold & the fog (the steep incline as some of you will know is such that it is a bit like rappelling in a very crowded art gallery with a hot dog in one hand & a beer in the other while attempting to take in the paintings & installations) is probably not the optimum situ re. the consumption of delicate, heart-rending songs of love & loss and liege & lief. Watching as ye olde English Rocke Star is neatly if irritatingly re-packaged as the mature anchor man to a younger pretty thing who so eerily resembles his younger self is not exactly our cup of tea either. And T-Bone Burnett -- as we already knew, for we saw him once do a brilliant show with Elvis Costello, in Harrogate of all places -- ain't much of a singer & seemed out to prove it.

But of course none of that matters. Those songs. Those voices. That fabulous band. The delightful attitude of the crowd at the Greek -- it's easy enough to poke fun at Bay Areans, for hippie attitudes cannot run a world... but they do work quite nicely at a rock concert. And the meta-frame -- the political & aesthetic rehabilitation of ye olde English Rocke Star -- is something that Robert Plant (or his management) can certainly feel pleased about. There was a moment during last night's show when Plant sang back-up to the superb Krauss & we remembered that the young Robert, when singing "Dazed & Confused" would pause after the line "the soul of a woman was created below" to add: "I don't think so". The reception of Zep (in the States at least) appears to have been so bone-headed that many of these vital details have been forgotten.

Highlights for moi. "Rich Woman" (the opener) is a song you only need to hear once & it's under your skin for a lifetime. "Black Dog" -- what a journey this song has had. From its genesis in John Paul Jones' encounter with Muddy Waters' Electric Mud (he's said the riff was nicked from there -- possibly the first instance of someone claiming to have stolen something they invented?) to the 98 time changes on the fourth album, this salivating beast no longer needs its angry bark, for it has learned to growl with a latent menace that is a sign of maturity. And the fiddle solos conjure up Pagey of course not just because of their wizard-ish intensity but because Pagey's geetar sound was so often violin-ish. It was exciting to hear "Matty Groves" -- the old folk tune covered by Fairport Convention among others -- that (alongside a too-muted "The Battle Of Evermore") reminds us of the traditional music roots that have always been a part of the Plant songbook, except during the 1980s. But no one worries too much about "Tall Cool One" these days.

Alison Krauss is the star of this show & her solo numbers, along with T-Bone's, demonstrated quite clearly why Robert Plant is not working up a new version of "Whole Lotta Love" right now. Sure T-Bone ain't much of a singer but he doesn't need to be, for he is (as Plant told us) a "taste fascist" -- misuse of the term fascist but we know what he means -- of some order, and this set is perfectly paced & brilliantly constructed. By the time "Your Long Journey" rolls around at the end of the encore set you are almost ready to give it up for Jesus. So it was fitting & just perfect that we exited to the strains of what sounded like a Welsh male choir singing hymns over the PA. The prof then had the enormous good fortune to find himself strolling homeward with a companion who provided us with the perfect coda to the evening -- a spontaneous rendering of various Staple Singers hits. Awesome.

When Adam & his wife (hi Adam & his wife!) said "Good Evening" to me as they sat down we thought he was making a Zeppelin joke. He wasn't. (Led Zep III, Adam, that's the one for your daughter.) We had expected the shadow of Zeppelin to hang over the evening rather like the gloom that enfolded the Greek last night. That it did not speaks to the strength of the Raising Sand material & the clever way it is presented & paced.

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So what does this mean for Led Zeppelin? Burnett/Krauss/Plant did after all play something from the "next album".

Is Jimmy monitoring events from afar, do you think? Does he now turn to JP & say, "You got Paul Rodgers' number on you?"

We certainly hope not.