The stage in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier is set in velvet, transformed into ball room grand chic, but Alison Krauss and Robert Plant show up as if they were diving into the muddy waters of the Mississippi: this music is not clean. On purpose. Of the Rich Woman, we are in country country. With Fortune teller, we are in New Orleans. The musicians don’t play slack, muscled rockabilly in can’t let go. ” Good evening ! launches the Robert in French. She’s already awesome.
The lovebirds are in voice, both. Alison is controlling her dysphonia — a condition that affects singing. Must do it. The conditions still have to be good. Recent wildfires and the resulting smog have forced the postponement of outdoor shows. But in Wilfrid it’s ideal, and Alison Krauss sings The Price Of Love (of the Everly Brothers) with aplomb, power and beauty.
A biblical evening
Robert Plant gives himself a few cries of his most famous vintage in a very psychobilly version of Rock’n’Roll by Led Zeppelin. Delirium in the room: to believe that God sang a verse from the Gospel. You could call it redemption: Led Zep having plagiarized everything from the pioneers of blues, r’n’b and rockabilly, the singer soaks himself in the sacred waters which wash away the truth like blessed silt. And Alison, in harmony or on the violin, provides the guarantee, the validation: we are indeed on the Promised Land of America.
plant serves High And Lonesome (from Raise The Roof, their last album together) with his rediscovered Ledzeppian highs, as if to prove that it was not without reason that he was shouting at the time. That he and his accomplices did not copy the Ancients in vain, but to celebrate them and bring them to life. That Led Zep’s glorious journey led to that Friday night on Earth, the path necessary to find the right path.
The flavor and the fervor
The fact is that everything is played with taste, flavor, fervor. No choice: Robert Plant cannot play the rockstar alongside an Alison Krauss. It would be understood. And the guy knows it. It must be credible, irreproachable. It is even the goal. When the final great Ledzeppian triplet arrives (Gallows Pole, The Battle Of Evermore, When The Levee Breaks), the versions serve root music. Finally justified. Plant dares to climb and gladly climbs to the top of her register, since Alison is there to guarantee the solidity of the grounding. Majesty without fuss: this is the great success of this show.
Demonstration made, as a reminder, we can return to the Everly Brothers: stick with me, Baby And Gone Gone Gone pushed to Kentucky through Nashville. Krauss and Plant are its curators as well as servants. Allies for their sustainability.
JD McPherson’s Lesson
It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate first part than JD McPherson, this rock’n’roll singer-guitarist ace who sums up the 1950s all by himself. A cover of Nick Lowe on a background of Bo Diddley beat to start? Nothing less than the very symbolic Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day. Archetypal riffs, knee-slapping twang, heart-rending ballad from Irma Thomas (It’s raining), we already had everything we needed even before Robert Plant flanks Led Zep’s Rock’n’Roll to generations of disciples sure and certain that he invented the universe. It will not have taken anything away from his legend, but yes, oh yes, rock’n’roll existed before the first curl of our hero.