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::Release Info::
Release Title:
Robert Plant - Band Of Joy 2011 - [MP4-AAC](oan)
Encode date:
UTC 2011-05-02
:Storyline:
Broadcast April 22, 2011 on PBS TV's Live From The Artists Den
Band of Joy | War Memorial Auditorium | Nashville, TN | Feb 8, 2011
Before rock was about rage, it was about slow, deep, complete soul-grinding coitus – the kind
of flesh on flesh revelation that shifts realities and levitates bodies through the sheer force of
attraction and friction that releases built up tension. If Band of Joy demonstrated one thing at
Nashville’s War Memorial, it was the potency of carnal thrust as trance-inducer and
firestarter.
And if one would argue that Robert Plant’s latest musical incarnation lacks the seismic sonic
force of the band that gave him fame, it could also be argued that Led Zeppelin was a hamfisted
pummel to the stone solid, utterly mersmerizing grooves now conjured by Plant,
songwriter/artists/multi-instrumentalists Buddy Miller, Darrell Scott, Patty Griffin, bassist Byron
House and drummer Marco Giovino.
Walking out with no fan fair in a black shirt and pointy boots, the dirty blond icon reached for
his mic stand, wailed “Let me take you to the movies, let me take you to the show…,”
unleashing an almost knee-bending frisson in Zeppelin’s sigmature “Houses of the Holy” that
was as innocent as it was unholy – and it was obvious everything the audience knew was
about to go so much deeper. Deeper, indeed. “Tangerine” became a meditation that
transfixed and transformed, while the BoJ’s “Monkey,” which Plant tagged as “Lo-Fi” in his
introduction, was equal parts sonic topography surf and an exploration of something just
beyond the realm of white noise.
Indeed, “Monkey” could be the “Sweet Jane” of skin. Trance meets rural musical sensibiities,
yearning and deliverance stretched across Giovino’s pulsing beats and Miller’s squaloring
guitar tones, a bit neon underwater, a skosh futurist high beam. But it is in getting lost in the
emotional forcefield, the tug of those rhythms that one arrives at a higher plane.
Higher planes – sexual and salvational – have much to do with Band of Joy’s narcotic effect.
A steady vein of religion runs through – be it the gripping “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come
Down,” delivered with a ferocity worthy of Pentecostals and intertwined with Griffin’s own fullthrottle
“Wade In The Water” interjection, Griffin’s break-out “Move Up” and Miller’s
“Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go,” equal bits frenzy, nerves and breakthrough resolution.
Plant is a generous icon. Prowling the stage in full lion capacity, he sees no need to flex or
hog to declare dominance – yet, nowhere is he more impacting than standing in the back
blowing an intense blues harmonica to reinforce Darrell Scott’s wide-open, hard Appalachian
yet almost elegiac turn on Porter Wagoner’s “Satsfied Mind.” Scott – the night’s
banjo/mando/steel guitar/bouzouki utility player, has a craggy mountain voice that fills a room
and can match Plant for power and for pathos.
Still, this show was not a tumble of harder, deeper, louder. No, Band of Joy’s strength –
beyond the depths they seek in terms of rhythms, harmonies and emotional nuance – is the
way slow feels intense and quick is euphoric. Like the yoga notion of tantra, which applies to
more than sex in spite of what Sting might suggest, BoJ seeks to immerse the fan in a
complete song experience: feelings, beats, cultures, moments. To be pulled from the shore,
perhaps drowned, certainly delivered is only the beginning.
And exuberance is a big part of the deal. A romp through Los Lobos’ “Angel Band” was as
sparkling and euphoric as anything a handful of amyl nitrate and Goldfrapp might elicit, while
the redux of the utterly frugalicious “You Can’t Buy My Love” is pluck and effervescence, sass
and vinegar on the half-shell. The latter also featured the Tinkerbelle-sized Griffin – in her
knee high, skyscraping stileto boots and beaded tribal print mini dress – as a honey-soaked
Aretha Frankin, throwing it out hard and letting it land where it will.
It is that sort of jubiliance that marks the thrill of musical consort. To come together, to writhe
in the realm of melody and rock with abandon… For Plant, legs crossed like a mandrake root,
body at times bent in half, there was the full tumble to the song, yet an elegance that added
an erotic charge that belied anything more than total want. To surrender, to shake, to be fully
present in the wash of notes is a strength only for those who can be unadorned – and it
defined the man who welcomed the audience to “an evening of strings, voices and skin.”
Harkening back to his original Band of Joy’s run in England’s “Underground Clubs,” where
stages were shared with unknowns like Pink Floyd and Richard Thompson, the ardor of the
past culled a passionate presence as the Miller-driven dervish-feeling excavation of
Thompson’s “House of Cards” was a howl of Zeppelin-esque proportion – shudder-inducing
and hypnotic with its tremolo quiver and call and response almost Druidic vocals.
Those vocals – at times 5 voices raised in a wall of parts and truths – have a blunt force
trauma impact, but always to a muscular celestiality. Even the darkness of “Gallows Pole,” a
ransom for a man slated to die and running out of options, had a frenzy to the parts that
suggested urgency, yes, but also a desperation that worked from a cellular level. It was nowor-
never forevermore and then… and in that swirling, whirling charge, pulses ratchet up and
the exquisite tension is compressed again and again until those voices burst into one final
last moment of deliverance.
It is an urgency that can’t be faked, can’t be looped, can’t be sequenced. It is what real
musicians, men and women who undrstand songs from the inside out, can coax and tease
from what lesser mortals reduce to progressions of notes and chord changes. Even
something as lilting as “Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday” is given a richer template of desire
and need from the seamless execution and respect for the roots.
But it’s not just the ability of the players. It is more the essence of who these people are and
the way they come together in the name of something sacred. “Ramble On” is equal parts
mystic meander and cathartic arrival; as much freedom and exploration of self as rogue’s
explanation. Yet there was a point of jaw-dropping combustion – buoyed by exemplary
players who not only ignited, but pushed the storied rocker to a place where his voice shook
with the full potential of the lyric.
Still in fine voice, Plant’s performance filled the room with an urgency of arrival, a need to be
free, a will to be gone and the relentlessness of one who is possessed by drives and calmed
only by the motion. It is not a choice that “Ramble On” demonstrates, but more an urgency to
breathe and a recognition of what kind of fire creates this truth in motion. It is not tortured, it is
consumed – and never has Plant sounded so compelling.
In the organic reality being created with the not-folk-based, but highly old school Band of Joy,
the jagged places are part of it. To be able to hang onto a guitarline, a beat so deep you can
fall into it, a voice that quivers with sentiment and power, those are the things that make
music at its most unprocessed and raw so compelling… and when players this good come
together, it is sparks and fireworks from the sheer chemistry and joy in the playing.
That raw essebtialism is absolutely the defining modality for “surprise” opening act the North
Mississippi All-Stars as well. Playing as a duo Cody and Luther Dickinson – son of legendary
Memphis producer/music man Jim Dickinson – put the guitar/drum wall of sound to full
expression. Mining blues, rural song structures and gospel, the pair offered full-immersion to
a coterie of unadorned songs that were all thrust, no waiting. It is red dirt, swamp, clay and
dust that swirls across their spare reality – and yet the sounds they generated, truths they
broiled and presence they offered was every bit as big as Band of Joy.
More moonshine than brandy, but every bit as polished, NMAS offered a glimpse into the
haunted places that gave birth to much of what fuels Band of Joy. Soul-scraping musicianship
and singing creates that turpentined truth that shakes you, but leaves you lighter for the
experience. A purgative of utterly enjoyable effect.
"About the Artists Den"
Since its launch on U.S. public television in 2009, “Live from the Artists Den” – created by
Mark Lieberman – has become a three-time NY Emmy-nominated series and has expanded
with international distribution by Shine International to include A&E in Europe, Turner
Broadcasting in Latin America and multiple online outlets such as Hulu, Vevo and Pandora.
Past artists include Ringo Starr, Alanis Morissette, The Black Crowes, Tori Amos, Ben
Harper, Regina Spektor, Corinne Bailey Rae and David Gray.
Interviews at each show are conducted by noted music critic Alan Light, the Artists Den’s
Director of Programming. Concert events are invitation-only and free. Artists Den Records
offers live concert CDs and DVDs from its shows, such as the latest Limited Edition DVD
release, “David Gray: Live from the Artists Den,” recorded at New York’s Broad Street
Ballroom.
01. intro [01:10]
02. Angel Dance [04:55]
03. House Of Cards [04:44]
04. Cindy, I'll Marry You One Day [03:39]
05. Somewhere Trouble Don't Go [04:48]
06. Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down [03:50]
07. Somewhere Trouble Don't Go [04:07]
08. Move Up [03:29]
09. Ramble On [07:52]
10. Gallows Pole [05:50]
11. Down To The Sea [05:01]
12. Rock And Roll [04:30]
:Genre:
Rock | Folk | Pop
Release date:
22/04/2011
::Performers::
Robert Plant - vocals
Patty Griffin - guitar, vocals
Buddy Miller - guitar, vocals
Darell Scott - pedal steel, guitar, banjo, mandolin, vocals
Byron House - bass
Marco Giovino - drums
::General::
Format:
MPEG-4
File Size:
2.36 GiB
Overall Bit Rate:
6184 Kbps
Duration:
54mn 0s
Sample:
NO
Subtitles:
NO
::Video Info::
Container:
avc1
Video Codec Type:
x264
Video bitrate:
6036 Kbps
Encoding type:
2 Pass
Resolution:
1280 X 720 pixels
Aspect ratio(AR):
16:9
Quality Factor(QF):
0.219
Frame Rate:
29.970 fps
Source:
1080i larryruul Thanks!!
jacket:
kigoonjir Thanks!!
::Audio Info::
Audio Language:
English
Audio Codec:
AAC
Bitrate Mode:
Variable
Bitrate:
210 Kbps
Sample Rate:
48.0 KHz
Channel Count:
6 channels (Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE) |
