Robert Plant spoils a delta blues festival

[Dave W]

What happened when a "free" blues festival hired a big name: not-quite-so-free

It's really the fault of the organizers. Pathetic.

[nofi]

more pathetic than pathetic...

[gearHed289]

Crash the gates!!!

[Denis]

Man, that's insulting the audience and the rest of the bands. While I doubt it's 100% Robert Plant's fault, maybe they just need to not get big names like that...

[nofi]

how would they introduce plant.

" let's welcome the man who made millions and millions of dollars off your music and never gave credit where credit is due". thank you, enjoy the show!

[luve2fli]

It's really the fault of the organizers.

Absolutely. No way Robert Plant had a hand in any of that. His management team had an asking price, the fesitval agreed to it and then to recoup their financial outlay, came up with that ridiculous scheme to sell tickets and block off real estate for a VIP area. My big objection is why set up the front of house like that so far in advance of Robert Plant's appearance? If the rest of the fesitival was free, why not set up the VIP area just for the one show? Bizarre ...... but then, I don't pretend to understand what goes through these festival organizers minds.

[Rob]

Just a Cheesy grab for bucks!  It is in MS for gosh sakes!  What the hell $10,000 for an (unsold) table?

[Dave W]

I don't know how many of the VIP tables or seats were sold. The bigwigs who paid for the VIP seats didn't show up at all for the other artists. Obviously they couldn't have cared less. The other artists -- the real bluesmen -- are what the festival was supposed to be about. Yet they had to play for a huge empty VIP section while the real fans of the real bluesmen were way off to the side where they could hardly see or hear.

I doubt Plant had anything to do with the arrangements, unless it was specified in some contract clause. But hiring him is what caused this to happen.

[chromium]

Yeah - I bet the bands hated that arrangement just as much as the crowd.  Looks like dinner theater!  I've played at gigs setup like that before, and it made me feel very insulated from the audience.  I prefer when there's some interaction.

[uwe]

Hardly a suspect when it comes to defending anybody with Led Zep - did I ever mention here that they are overrated, Rob? - affiliations, I rule out that he had anything to do with this. The man is wealthy as hell and his solo career has carefulyy avoided commercialism (with maybe the exception of his first, still very zeppelinish solo album), he could be making even more shitloads of money in a Zep reunion, yet turns everything down and rather records duets with Alison Krauss with his voice carefully mixed into the background.

If he was the right choice for a blues festival is another matter. His blues credibility is largely based on those two Zep albums from the sixties. Since then I find that his folk and ethno influences have been the much more dominant influence on him, if anything, he's avoiding in his work to do what his old audience wants from him which is roar over blues riffs and 12-bar harmonies.

I guess the organizers wanted to make a buck with him, but Plant on his own isn't (and to his credit: doesn't want to be) the draw of a Led Zep reunion. I'm sure they were approached for the Olympics ceremony too and he refused ...