Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at Ravinia: It's not Led Zeppelin but it's damn good

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to Heaven.

Nope! Uh uh! No way! If you coming to see a Robert Plant and Alison Krauss concert, you aren’t going to hear that. STAIRWAY DENIED!!

It was almost fifteen years ago that I first saw a photo of Plant and Krauss together. My first thought was how creepy looking is this? But then I heard their album “Raising Sand.” It didn’t take long to understand their mutual musical attraction. Their voices fit together perfectly. You listen to any of their songs and it’s as if you hear songbirds singing. It’s just beautiful music.

And I wasn’t the only one to think that. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, “Raising Sand was nominated for five Grammys—and they won them all including Album of the Year, and Record of the Year for “Please Read the Letter.”

The duo then took a little break—and by little, I mean twelve years. They reunited again in 2021 to give us “Raise the Roof.” That led to more rave reviews—and more touring.

That brings us to last Tuesday night at the Ravinia Festival. When you looked around at the crowd, you saw many of them wearing Led Zeppelin swag. That’s understandable. Let’s face it, when you hear the name Robert Plant, Zeppelin is the first thing that pops into your head. But the band broke up in 1980 after the death of their drummer John Bonham. That was more than forty years ago. Plant has had a long solo career since then. No, it hasn’t reached the heights it did in his Zeppelin days, but he did have some good solo records plus the two hit albums with Krauss.

The funny thing is for me the highlight of the night was two Led Zeppelin songs, “The Battle of Evermore” and “When the Levee Breaks.” Not because they were Zeppelin tunes, but because of their different arrangements and how they were performed by Plant, Krauss and the outstanding band supporting them.

Hey hey mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

No! NO!! NO!! No way! Not gonna happen!! Yeah, it’s not Led Zeppelin, but what you heard was damn good. It’s hard to find music where two voices meld into one as perfectly as Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

So for those in the audience who looked bored at what they were hearing, shame on them. They had plenty of opportunities to do just a bit of research and find out what the show was going to be like. Plus, they missed out on hearing a night of beautiful music.