Royal Festival Hall, London
11 December 2025 – words: Paul Davies / images: 00liadon Music Channel
For a lionised golden god rock star who bestrode all the world’s largest stages when imperiously fronting up the singular and unsurpassed blues/hard rock behemoths Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant has since taken to the lesser travelled road of personal musical taste devotion like a natural compared to most of his contemporaries. Throwing his legendary heft into making the music that he enjoys, and not kowtowing to audience and industry expectations, he has transformed himself into an international music treasure. Even more so with the Saving Grace band with whom he has been touring since 2019 and has released two enchanting long player recordings. As he said himself this evening: “We are Saving Grace from the west side of common sense and we are exploring possibilities.”
Leather trousered, leonine of hair and countenance, powerful and subtle of voice, not forgetting the occasional impressive harmonica turns, and dressed all in black like a left of field alternative Johnny Cash, Robert Plant is the epitome of a maverick team player allowing all of his fellow musicians to shine in the long shadow of his fame.
Walking onstage from opposite wings, both he and the alluring talent of Suzi Dian held hands as they met centre stage and commenced to weave their vocal harmony magic, with each taking the lead, to a mighty mystical effect as they fronted up a set list of folky wonders with a big cut of rock and deep alt country ramblings.
The Very Day I’m Gone and The Cuckoo were the first to fly out from this high and mighty nest of songs and set the tone for the fertile musical hollow-ways and byways to come. Martha Scanlon’s Higher Rock heralded in the first Zeppelin song of the night as Suzi Dian strapped on her accordion to add a sweet flavour of bright notes to Ramble On, much to this sell out audience’s whooping delight.
“We’ve come a long way over the years from the Shropshire Tourist Information centre, which is easier to travel to than here for us rural lot”, Plant declared as this consummate ensemble rolled out songs about disappointment, heartbreak and spiritual enlightenment with a charmful version of Plant’s solo album song The May Queen, ‘hallelujah for her’, he exclaimed, particularly uplifting. These are, for all intents and purposes, modern spirituals with a pagan folk rock twist.
Further plucking out folky Zeppelin tracks from his monumental backstory: Four Sticks’ beaty ruminations; a stomping Friends and the first song encore piece de resistance The Rain Song, beautifully delivered by this elegant six piece ensemble, brought a tear or two to the collective eye.
Plant reminded all of his rock god legend with more than a few powerfully delivered ‘ ‘ooh, ooh, yeah, yeahs’, during this evening’s very high entertainment. He also rolled back the years to his pre-fame days when he and his mates would “lie on the floor and listen to The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape” as this well versed group then performed the Grape’s It’s A Beautiful Day which Plant dedicated to Bob Mosely.
A shimmering take on Down To The Sea, lifted from Plant’s still excellent Fate Of Nations solo album, was another of many standout moments. Transforming Neil Young’s For The Turnstiles into a song of their own, they appositely finished tonight’s outstanding show with Low’s Everybody’s Song.
It was a remarkable performance, which filled the soul and raised the spirits, in which the true musical gold lay in the at times transcendent interplay richly mined and shared between each band member. Eschewing bass guitar, Barney Morse- Brown transformed his cello into a double act of this instrument and as a sonorous bass; Oli Jefferson deftly held together the rhythmic dance from behind with his almost super natural percussive talent; the plucky Matt Worley played his banjo like an Appalachian veteran adding an earthy Middle England country folk flavour, as well as contributing his beautiful singing voice, to these well chosen tunes and Tony Kelsey delivered the rock with his judicious electric guitar playing plus acoustic and baritone guitar inflections and flourishes.
Hats off to Robert Plant for discovering this band of musicians, hiding under a rock somewhere in the middle of England, and putting his faith and confidence in them and Suzi Dian who reminded of his all too brief collaboration with Sandy Denny. Hopefully, this musical meeting of musicians will Ding Dong Merrily for evermore…
