Saving Grace
Tivoli Theatre,
Wimborne, Dorset
Thursday 30th May 2019
19.30
with Swing Fever support
SAVING GRACE ARE:
Suzy Dian on vocals
Oli Jefferson on percussion
Tony Kelsey on guitar, baritone guitar, mandolin
Robert Plant on vocals
Matt Worley on banjo, cuatro, baritone guitar, and guitar
Standing In The Shadow Of The Hill
Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down / Fixin’ To Die
The Cuckoo
Soul of A Man
Your Long Journey
Cindy I’ll Marry You Someday
Nature Boy
It’s A Beautiful Day Today
Somebody Was Watching
Season Of The Witch
Ohio
encores
Everybody’s Song
Jesus On The Mainline
And We Bid You Goodnight
They democratically list the band in alphabetical order, but just scroll down to P.
Robert Plant. On other Tivoli reviews I’ve gasped in wonder at the likes of Judy Collins and Steve Cropper playing this local community theatre, but ROBERT PLANT is a whole different level. And for £25. The theatre is well aware of the potential issues. No tickets available until you arrive with credit card and ID, and a friend couldn’t even get them by calling in a couple of days before. It was of course sold out very fast indeed. Robert Plant knows that he could charge vastly more than £25, and he wants to play intimate venues, and as Bill Wyman always says when he introduces The Rhythm Kings, ‘This isn’t a career move.’ So they’re making sure to eliminate any secondary market. Once you’re in and have your ticket, you’re in!
This is a band without an album to promote (yet) and none of Robert Plant’s albums of the last decade were on sale either. No T-shirts. No concessions stand. A surprise after The Unthanks at the same low-key venue a month earlier, was security stewards. They were strict on phones too, as soon as I saw a phone screen lighting up in the audience to take a photo or video, a steward went down the aisle and asked them to switch it off. I did wonder about the guy trying to get in clutching a Led Zeppelin LP and a pen. I hate to give away onstage lines (people re-use them) but Robert Plant must have seen the many tribute band fliers in the lobby and said they were the warm-up act for the next Led Zeppelin tribute band at this theatre. That rang a bell- John Wetton once described playing solo in a small venue in Canada, only to find a King Crimson tribute band playing the much bigger hall just along the road the same night. I half expected all evening that someone was going to shout out Stairway to Heaven! but it never happened. Led Zep is such a long time ago, and few albums have been as highly-acclaimed as Raising Sand … and that’s twelve years ago.
The way the evening was arranged was telling. On stage, Robert Plant described his own musical journey over more than fifty years, from the kid fascinated by blues and the Mississippi Delta, to his “conversion” to the music of the hills in general, but especially The Appalachians. With the Saving Grace band the interest is in found material, covers, if you prefer. So go back to Raising Sand with Alison Krause in 2007, and like this tour, the focus is on “found” songs … I prefer the film or theatre term to “cover versions.” They’re not covers, they’re re-explorations of heritage songs. On The Lullaby … and The Ceaseless Roar in 2014, that took him to writing original material. I’ve done that physical journey … from New Orleans to the Mississippi Delta to Memphis and then through the deep woods along the Natchez Trail to Nashville. Plant’s was a musical journey, and it’s reflected by the support set by Swing Fever (reviewed below) which is firmly blues and R & B. Saving Grace is much more “folk” or Appalachian than Raising Sand with none of the loud dynamics. The whole of the evening was beautifully balanced, a pleasant volume was never exceeded. There was no dynamic lighting plot or changes, just everyone well lit (and sympathetically to age, with straw and pinkish LEDS).
They start with the three backing musicians playing, until Suzy Dian walks on and begins singing Standing In The Shadow of The Hill. Robert Plant slides quietly on at the side curtain and lets her sing before he slips onto stage and joins her on harmony. He worked out years ago that there is a delicious combination between his higher pitched voice and a lower female voice. Suzy Dian is a perfect singing partner. She takes that Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin role with ease.
Religious songs are a major thread all evening … some are gospel, some just Appalachian spiritual. The next one up is Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down and they finish with a brief quote from Fixin’ To Die. Robert Plant did that on Band of Joy in 2010.
Robert Plant proves a fine relaxed raconteur all evening, engaging, unassuming and with not a touch of “rock star” in sight. He introduces the traditional English folk song The Cuckoo. It dates back to at least the 18th century, but they sing the version as it was adapted in America, because it finishes never sings cuckoo until the fourth of July. The famous recording is Clarence Ashley on banjo, and banjo leads here. Beautiful singing together. The intricate band … two guitar / mandolin/ banjo plus a solid drummer are superb.
Then the lead vocal on the next one is banjo player, Matt Worley, with Robert and Suzy singing backing harmony on Soul of A Man, so a nod back to original blues / gospel as the song was first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson, though like most early blues, “first recorded” is about as close as you can get to origin. This really emphasizes “We are a band, Saving Grace … NOT Robert Plant and backing guys.” Robert Plant adds a touch of harmonica.
Your Long Journey is the Doc Watson song, written on the death of his wife, and was covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on Raising Sand.
Cindy I’ll Marry You Someday ups the tempo. It was done on Band of Joy. I haven’t got a copy of the album … so I just diverted to amazon and ordered it!
There was a fascinating story (no anecdote spoilers) on the origins of Nature Boy which became a hit for Nat King Cole in 1948 who was in my mind because the support set had included Route 66 in Nat King Cole style. The number of those recording it include David Bowie and more recently Lady GaGa with Tony Bennett. It’s a hard song to sing, and listening to Robert Plant singing, I thought that back listening to him yelping about squeezing his lemon, I had had no idea what a very fine and accomplished singer he is.
It’s a Beautiful Day Today – Moby Grape! Moby Grape 69. Such an unexpected cover of such a marvellous song, written by Bob Moseley.
Somebody Was Watching brought us back to gospel, and one of Pop Staples final songs, from the posthumous Don’t Lose This album.They were songs from 1999, which Jeff Tweedy finished producing fifteen years later.
Season of The Witch as soon as it starts, Suzy seems to channel the Julie Driscoll version which she did with Brian Auger and The Trinity. It’s a Donovan song, but after Julie Driscoll reworked it, Bloomfield, Kooper, Stills did it on Super Session then Vanilla Fudge REALLY did it. I know it backwards because my friends in Ginger Man did it too, then early Supertramp did it. I loved this version bringing out the eerie nature of the song. Robert Plant got out the sets of maracas for himself and later Suzy, and I was pleased to see they’re still made in red, natural and green, just as they were in 1963, and when Bo Diddley employed a maracas player.
The closing song of the main set was Patty Griffin’s transcendent song Ohio. She was in Band of Joy and he sang it with her before she put it on American Kid.
encores
Everybody’s Song – Robert Plant announced it was the song by Low, and it was unrecognisably different from the grungy original. Much better here, I thought, after checking it on YouTube by Low. At the end, it gave him the one point in the evening to hit those trademark Led Zeppelin vocal sounds.
Jesus On The Mainline is a further spiritual. Jesus got referenced a lot in song this evening. For me, it’s permanently linked to Ry Cooder’s version from Paradise and Lunch. Back to “first recording” which was Alan Lomax recording Mississippi Fred McDowell in the 1950s, though it’s generally thought to be 20 or 30 years older. A great spiritual with Robert Plant on harmonica again.
We Bid You Goodnight. Instruments were put down. The five gathered in a tight group around one mic, with just one acoustic guitar and sang their hearts out.
I was near the back. 100% instant standing ovation. No stragglers. Fully deserved. They haven’t done many gigs yet … watch out for more and don’t miss them.
SUPPORT SET:
Swing Fever
Sticky Wicket- drums, backing vocal
Tom Hill – acoustic bass, lead vocal
Al Gurr- keyboards
Ted Bunting – alto and tenor sax
Instrumental
Route 66 (Bobby Troup)
Ask Me No Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies (B.B. King)
Smack Dab in The Middle (Ray Charles)
Bright Lights Big City (Jimmy Reed)
Boogie Woogie Stomp (Albert Ammons)
If You Go In The City (Mose Allison)
Bim Bam (Sam Butera)
Back In The USSR (Lennon-McCartney)
I never skip the support band. Headliners tend to like to employ the solo singer or duo with acoustic guitar. I’ve never seen clearing a four piece electric band off stage in an interval as a big deal, but I date back to college gigs with four bands on the bill, and if a switch took more than ten or fifteen minutes, the punters got loudly restless and abusive. Headliners are also wary of really good support bands. I once saw America as support. They’d been booked months before, but the trouble was by the night of the concert they were #2 in the chart with A Horse With No Name. Ouch! for the headliners.
Robert Plant has the confidence to book a REALLY shit-hot support band. Looking online, I suspect that Swing Fever were created / assembled for his 2019 tours. Photos of February gigs as support show them as a three-piece called Beez Kneez, minus bass player Tom Hill.
The CVs are mind boggling. Lead singer and acoustic bass player is the American singer / musician / actor / comedian Tom Hill (aka Tom Clarke-Hill), This is a guy who has backed Frank Sinatra. The band leader is drummer Sticky Wicket, who leads the Sticky Wicket Swing Band. He calls himself the UK’s No 1 Swing Drummer, and that’s fair. He played with the Chris Barber band, Van Morrison, Zoot Money, Jools Holland, Joe Cocker, Mark Knopfler … that’s about a third of the list.
Apart from the reflection on the main set (blues to Appalachia), this was a support I’d’ve happily gone to see on their own. They’re playing at the swing / jump blues end of the R&B spectrum. The delight was knowing virtually every song in the set. I have the Mose Allison they covered, If You Go In The City, but couldn’t have named it right off. Well, the exception was the opening organ led instrumental, but it was familiar. I just couldn’t name it.
Route 66 took us back to the Nat King Cole approach … a year or two before Nature Boy in the main set. Smack Dab In The Middle may be Ray Charles, but in this part of Dorset, local hero Zoot Money springs to mind first.
Boogie Woogie Stomp was a piano showpiece and Sam Butera’s Bim Bam surrounded the drum solo … for a change and entertaining and humorous drum solo from Sticky Wicket. If You Go In The City featured scat singing by Tom Hill accompanying himself with remarkable bass playing.
Back in The USSR was a piece of musical archaeology taking us to the swing / jump artists who influenced Chuck Berry whose Back in The USA influenced The Beach Boys Surfin’ USA who influenced The Beatles (well, they might deny the intercession of the Beach Boys) … I really enjoyed thinking through the journey. With the wonders of Wiki, I just checked out the Chuck Berry song. Etta James AND Marvin Gaye (as a member of The Marquees) were on backing vocals. I never knew that!
Very good and accurate review of the evening Peter. Although the support wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I really appreciated the musicianship on display. Alan ‘Sticky’ Wicket and Tom Hill obviously had pedigree, a nice compliment to the main act.
Last time I saw Percy was at the O2 in Boscombe with the Sensational Space Shifters (anybody remember Led Zep playing the same venue back in 1971?). That night was a pretty raucous affair with three or four Zep numbers thrown in for good measure, the Tivoli show was the exact opposite. Restraint and emphasis on the song was the order of the day and Saving Grace pulled it off with aplomb. No posturing, no flashing lights, no excessive volume just pure music to soothe your soul. You have to hand it to Plant, he could have gone for the big payout, playing the football stadiums of the world with his old band, but instead he wanders off into uncharted (by aging rock stars that is) musical backwaters i.e. bluegrass, country, Americana, psychedelia and delivers a gem of show like tonight’s at a tiny venue in Wimborne, long may he continue.
John Cherry
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The Keyboard player in Swing Fever is the session pianist called Al Gurr and the saxophone player is Ted Bunting.
See http://www.algurr.co.uk
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Thanks, corrected above. We were discussing what we’d heard and got it wrong.
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What a wonderfully descriptive review! I was there with my husband, front row centre…. where else! The whole evening was surreal and musically intoxicating. Swing Fever an entertaining & authentic nod to R&B. We’ve seen Saving Grace 3 times now and this was our favourite show. Thanks for your review, they are truly a ‘must see’, can’t wait to see where this leads for them.
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Cheers for a full and great review Peter.
This was just 4 months and 4 days since their very first gig and all their shows have been low-key so far, including a handful of surprise support slots. As you can imagine, there have been very few shows so far, but this was my 3rd time seeing them and there has been magic in the air every time. Their set length has gradually increased too and I can’t wait to see them again, as this is certainly a rare and special musical project.
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[…] added of Saving Grace (LINKED) which is Robert Plant’s new band. Yes, THE Robert Plant, at the Tivoli Wimborne Community […]
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Fantastic piece. Thank you, Peter. I saw them in Stroud with basically the same set, and this brought it all back!
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