MOG

Yeah, I've been away from MOG for a while. I was playing Prospero in an innovative production. Here is a picture of the venue:

Annnyway, I have no MP3s at work and Rhapsody is blocked, and my time at home is now devoted almost entirely to children's soccer, but I did manage to get out of the house last night to see Alison Krauss and Robert Plant at Boston's Harborlights Pavilion.

Now, though I rarely see live music these days (Ozzfest last August was my last live show), I've seen a lot of concerts in my life, and this was really something special. I walked out of there feeling like it was a privilege to have been able to be there.

I mean, by the end of most concerts, even the really good ones, I usually end up feeling like, "okay, that's really enough." (Full disclosure--when I saw the Pixies in 05, I actually felt that way before the end--it was about 2/3 of the way through, when they played "Crackity Jones.")

After two hours of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, (with a crack band led by T-Bone Burnett), I felt like I would have been happy to stay there all night.(full disclosure--I, like about half the crowd, was in the bathroom for T-Bone's two solo numbers, neither of which was his classic "The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper.")

But on to the music. They played most of the album Raising Sand (which is fantastic and which you should download immediately, though if you can find some bootleg live recordings of this tour, that's probably even better) and, as on the album, they sound fantastic together. It's a combination that sounds weird when you hear about it and perfect when you actually hear it.

And it was really magical live--you could tell from the energy on the stage that this is a group of people that really enjoys making music together. (and you can also tell simply by Robert Plant's participation. There may be other reasons why it didn't happen, but he certainly could have been playing stadiums on a Led Zep reuinion tour for untold millions of dollars, and instead was playing small (for him) venues behind a Rounder records release.)

I haven't always been crazy about Alison Krauss's choice of material, but her voice is a national treasure. It is both awe inspiring and colossally unfair that one person should be such a gifted singer and a gifted fiddler (when she played the fiddle, I was reminded of Prince playing guitar--it just seemed like it was an extension of her body rather than an instrument she was playing), and she got a lot of time singing by herself, occasionally with Robert Plant at the back of the stage providing backup vocals.

During one such moment, as she was singing "Down in the River to Pray" or whatever that song from the O Brother soundtrack is called, some drunk guy staggered up to me and said, "What the hell is this shit? Where's the Led Zeppelin?!" "You, sir, are an idiot," I replied, when I was sure he was out of earshot.

But there was some Led Zeppelin. "Black Dog", done as a duet in a kind of slow blues style, was awesome. "Battle of Evermore" was also phenomenal, as was "When the Levee Breaks." Even Plant's solo "In the Mood", which I've never liked before, worked in this setting with this band and these voices. They also saluted the late Bo Diddley with a killer version of "Who Do You Love."

Speaking of voices, Plant's is in surprisingly good shape. I guess he probably doesn't have the range he used to, but his vocal tone is fantastic. And he's still a rock and roll showman at heart. He was able to be a generous duet partner, but on a couple of numbers when it was really time to rock, he grabbed the mike stand and took command of the stage in a way that only a few frontmen can do. And the guy is like 60.

There's a reason that so many religious services include music. It has the power to move you in a way that transcends the ordinary. (I felt this way several times when the music was so beautiful it almost hurt to listen to it.)

I know many moggers will understand what I mean when I say for me, music has really become the bedrock of my spiritual life, providing a feeling of connection to my fellow beings and possibly even something greater than us in a way that religion hasn't been able to do for me.

I know it's tremendously uncool to admit to being so moved by a concert, but this was really a spiritual experience for me. It's a memory I'm going to treasure for a long time.

A lot of concerts make me nostalgic for my lost youth, but this one made me happy that I'm old enough to really appreciate what was happening. "Come back and see us again," Plant said at the end of the night, "we'll be around for a while."

I certainly hope so.