Originally published in Edmonton Journal
By Ben Wener
The Orange County Register

Led Zeppelin’s wailing vocalist rediscovers melody with new band

Only the deafly devoted would contend that Robert Plant has had an impeccable solo career.

Certainly some of his works has earned justifiable praise, Pictures at 11, for instance, the first and still finest foray from a member of Led Zeppelin since its breakup in 1980, remains a remarkable (if often forgotten) accomplishment, a logical extension of his former approach that today isn’t trapped by its era. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in Worcester Evening News (UK, Online Edition)

EX-Led Zeppelin star Robert Plant, who was recently appointed patron of Kidderminster College’s record label, will be making a speech about it at a launch party. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in LAWeekly–September 20, 2002
Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, Sept. 12, 2002
Concert review by Robert Lloyd

Freak flag still flying, Robert Plant, late of Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin reunions, brought his enduring rock glamour and still-mighty god-hammer to the Greek Theater in an awesome display of control and abandon whose only fault was that it ended too soon. Plant still roams the territory marked out by Zeppelin, that unsuspected country bordered by the Mississippi Delta, the Middle East and Middle Earth, a place of lemon-squeezing heat, filigreed Orientalism and fairy-tale wonder; such is the stuff of his latest album, Dreamland, mostly a collection of covers, with an emphasis on old-school West Coast psychedelia. (The live set also included a cover of Love’s “A House Is Not a Motel.”) ||Continue reading||

Originally published in Hollywood Reporter–September 16, 2002
Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, Sept. 12, 2002
Concert review by Daina Darzin Manning

“Let’s be masters of the new nostalgia.” That was Robert Plant’s invitation to a multigenerational, enthusiastic crowd — and he wasn’t kidding.

The legendary Led Zeppelin frontman took his fans on a sonic magical mystery tour ranging from somber, Doors-y psychedelia to folksy ballads to dark Middle Eastern melodies that twined around in the evening breeze. As he does on his new cover-heavy Universal disc, “Dreamland,” Plant paid sincere homage to his various influences, as well as sampling moments from his own career.

Unlike some veteran artists, Plant has the Aging Gracefully Rock God thing down pat. Relaxed, charming and comfortable with his wrinkles, he still looks and sounds great. He reminisced about his youth and dreaming about playing L.A.’s Sunset Strip, paying tribute to his early heroes, ’60s cult band Love, with a dreamy, imaginative take on “A House Is Not a Motel.” Other highlights included the Cajun-flavored, sharply percussive “Funny in My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ to Die)” and a solemn, thoughtful reading of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.”

But the biggest cheers of the evening were reserved for old Zep material — and Plant indulged his fans with “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Going to California” and a stellar, blistering rendition of “Whole Lotta Love,” which included an intense star turn by Lil Haydn on electric violin.

Overall, Plant proved that, just like the music he admires, he’s a classic who will always sound cool.

Review of Austin City Limits Taping, September 15, 2002
Originally appeared on highbias.com
by Michael Toland

So many of the old classic rockers (and by that we mean the folks dominating FM radio in the late 60s and 70s—and for that matter, now) choose to rest on their laurels, to simply parrot their past triumphs on record and wallow in the past in concert. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as recent tours by Yes, Jethro Tull and the Who suggest—if you still enjoy playing the old stuff, and it comes through in your performance, who’s to say you shouldn’t play it? But it leaves an artist, no matter how great, in the uncomfortable position of being a nostalgia act, still packing ‘em in on the live circuit, still making a profit, but, let’s face it, artistically irrelevant in the contemporary music landscape.

Robert Plant, who shall forever have the appellation “former Led Zeppelin frontman” attached to his name, despite having not been in that band since 1980, is not one of those artists. A fascination with world music, especially that found in Northern Africa and the Middle East, that dates back to his Zeppelin days has ensured a degree of adventurousness not often found in so-called “heritage artists.” Likewise, his devotion to the acid folk and psychedelic rock of the 60s gives him a wider range of influences from which to draw besides the heavy blues and proto-metal with which he’s most closely identified. On an unusually cool September night, he brought this intrepid spirit to the venerable Studio 6A for a taping of PBS’s live music program Austin City Limits. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Joint (Hard Rock Casino), Sept. 13, 2002
Concert review by Doug Elfman

Singer reinterprets other artists’ songs, tunes from his glory days

Mirthful gods wrinkle gracefully or die ignoble deaths. The supernatural god — Greek, say — falls to stricter deities promising utopia. The rock god — take your pick — drowns in vomit or, if favorably constituted, outlives his morals and finds himself performing on a Friday night at the Hard Rock Hotel at the age of 54. ||Continue reading||

This is a transcript of an interview given during the Austin City Limits broadcast on PBS

ACL: How did it feel tonight? This is the first time you’ve been on our show, on our stage, in Austin.You’ve done a lot of TV over the years.

a: (Robert Plant): Yeah, and you’ve got it down, here, I mean the technical side of things and that sort of thing. It’s good to walk in here and know that you’re in good hands. And we’ve got it down because we’re a very close-knit, you know, musicians. It’s not turn up and go to different dressing rooms and… there’s a lot of that about.

There’re a lot of professional musicians and we’re a proper unit of people, so we can more or less turn this on on a street corner. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in Las Vegas Review-Journal
By Doug Elfman

In 1977, Robert Plant’s 6-year-old son died in an accident. [this is incorrect. See note at bottom] Three years later, John Bonham, the drummer in his band Led Zeppelin died during a vodka binge. Upon hearing the news of Bonham’s death, Plant decided immediately that the world’s most influential metal band was dead, too. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in Reuters Entertainment News
By Dean Goodman

These are confusing times for fans of heavy metal, people who like their rock ‘n’ roll leavened with thunderous guitars and the occasional satanic reference.

Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne, the self-described “Prince of Darkness,” has become a TV sitcom star, and now his counterpart from Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant, is singing old hippie songs. What could be next: Britney fronting AC/DC?

While Osbourne plays America’s favorite befuddled dad, fellow Englishman Plant is touring with his first solo album in nine years, “Dreamland,” a collection largely made up of cover songs. ||Continue reading||

Originally published in St. Louis Post Dispatch
Fox Theater, September 4, 2004
Concert review by Patrick Derfler

The last time Robert Plant came to town, he was accompanied by fellow rock icon Jimmy Page at Savvis Center where they dished out a thunderous set of Led Zeppelin classics.

A Page-less Plant played the Fox Theatre on Wednesday night with a band of fresh faces and a fresh approach to the Zeppelin and solo-Plant catalogs, as well as new material from his latest release, “Dreamland.” ||Continue reading||