Saving Grace (ft Robert Plant) - 17/4/2019

In by the skin of our teeth to this under-the-radar local gig for Robert Plant's most recent project - Saving Grace. I only heard of the gig in a local school theatre after it was sold out, by word of mouth. I got myself on the waiting list (in ninth place) but heard nothing so went down early on the night of the gig and just before the start time we managed to find two groups who had turned up one person short and sneaked in under the wire. I'm glad we made the effort - a stunning exposition of Americana from five great musicians, certainly Americana in the band sound which reminded me instantly of a T-Bone Burnett project. There was a muddy guitar, a frequent banjo, an insistent drum and the two vocalists, Robert Plant and Suzi Dian. Tony Kelsey was on guitar and also mandolin, and Matt Worley on banjo, acoustic and baritone guitars, and cuatro. Oli Jefferson was the drummer. The gig started with Suzi on vocals on a Patty Griffin cover, 'Standing' and the song perfectly suited her voice and the bands atmospheric Southern US sound. Then Robert took over on vocals to sing 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down' which he did with Band Of Joy when we saw them. The majority of the set was Americana of some sort backed by the excellent band musicians with Matt playing mostly banjo and he turned out to be a good vocalist as well and took the lead on one song. They also threw in a Donovan cover and this may have been the highlight of the set as 'Season of the Witch' is just such a great song and with this band and these two vocalists it was outstanding. There was another Patty Griffin cover 'Ohio' which was also excellent and then a Low cover of 'Everybody's Song' from The Great Destroyer. Those three songs were the last three before the encore - an outstanding end to what was a short set of a little over an hour. There was an acapello spiritual encore to finish. I'm so glad I didn't miss this local treat