Robert Plant Hypnotically Fuses Past and Present at Majestic Theatre

“I’ve appeared in many different incarnations in this town over the years, and God knows I can’t remember all of them,” Robert Plant said, by way of introduction, Wednesday night at the Majestic Theatre. 

Indeed, there’s a version of Plant who pivoted from Led Zeppelin directly into an obscenely lucrative career, giving die-hard fans the hits and nothing but, until all that remained of his soul and senses was ash. 

Instead, Plant — now 77 years old, slightly ginger of gait but capable as ever of summoning a roar which seems to split the heavens open — has steadfastly kept the nostalgia hounds at bay, chasing his muse wherever it leads. 

While there have been occasional financially charged forays into the past (looking at you, Unledded), Plant has remained preoccupied with the lesser explored or inadequately loved corners of blues, folk, country and pop music. Along the way, he offered immense joy in doing just as he did in Led Zeppelin: interpreting the works of others through his own distinctive lens.

Or, as the black-clad, eight-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer put it before a sold-out house Wednesday: “I’ve always been a folk singer — people always laugh at that.” 

Plant’s appearance in Dallas, alongside the extraordinary Suzi Dian and Saving Grace, marked his first solo turn here in eight years. (He was last in North Texas in 2022, at the Texas Trust CU Theatre, alongside Alison Krauss.) 

Touring behind Saving Grace, his 12th studio album, released last year, Plant spent a mesmerizing 90 minutes fusing the past and the present into a hypnotic whole. 

Saving Grace — drummer/percussionist Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, string instrumentalist and backing vocalist Matt Worley and cellist Barney Morse-Brown — and Dian functioned as a true ensemble with Plant, who frequently ceded the spotlight to his collaborators, retreating to the rear or the side of the sparely dressed stage. 

Everyone cycled through different instruments — Plant picked up a harmonica for “Higher Rock,” while Dian shouldered an accordion at various points, with Worley alternating between 12-string guitar and banjo.

Opening with “The Very Day I’m Gone,” Plant and Dian’s voices blended against the insistent drone of the musicians, building an eerie tension. Plant, no stranger to vocal partners in the latter part of his career, has a flintier fusion with Dian, as opposed to the softer, slightly more honeyed union with Krauss.

This collective, much like prior Plant assemblages (the Strange Sensation, the Sensational Space Shifters, Band of Joy), is adept at taking folk-rock and pushing it in fascinating directions: The bone-chilling vulnerability of Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl,” the acid-tinged radiance of Moby Grape’s “It’s a Beautiful Day Today” or the ragged, muscular “For the Turnstiles,” a Neil Young deep cut from 1974. 

Even Plant’s own catalog came in for reappraisal on Wednesday. It would be too much to suggest Plant was dismissive of “that thing that happened,” as he wryly alluded to Led Zeppelin at one point, but he was anything but precious with iron-clad classics like “Ramble On,” which was reconstituted as a woozy, smeared dirge, “Friends,” or the propulsive “Four Sticks,” an ideal fit for this particular band’s potent chemistry. (It should also be noted that while Wednesday’s audience was mostly attentive and well-behaved, the capacity crowd lost its collective mind any time Plant ventured into Led Zep territory, unleashing roaring standing ovations.)

The depth and power of the group’s connection was displayed time and time again on Wednesday, as Plant, in particular, seemed as in thrall to the musicians arrayed beside and behind him as anyone seated in the audience. During the climax of “Let the Four Winds Blow,” Plant stationed himself beside guitarist Kelsey as he teased an escalating flurry of notes from his fretboard, lost in the bliss of his bandmate’s creation. 

That equalization — diminishing the distance between rock star and audience, legend and bandmates — delivered a performance that felt larger than it looked. Call it an audience with superstardom on its own terms. 

Robert Plant could have stopped 45 years ago, and his place in music history would be secure. Instead of resting, he went seeking. That search, as exemplified by his latest incarnation alongside Saving Grace and Suzi Dian, feels as vital and gripping as anything in his back catalog. The stimulation of making music, of channeling all of his lives into the present moment, is as thrilling for the artist as it is for the audience.