When it comes to artist features and product reviews, Tom Brislin is one of the ace writers on our team of contributors that we just can't live without. Very soon, you'll be able to read his review of the Korg SV-1 in our December 2009 issue. Tom's also an accomplished musician in his own right, having toured with Debbie Harry, Meat Loaf, Yes, Renaissance, Francis Dunnery, and countless others. He just got back from a U.K. tour with Dunnery, and at one of the final gigs, Robert Plant came onstage and jammed. Check out this amazing video, and his blog entry below, cross-posted from tombrislin.com.
What
better way to end a tour than to have one of the biggest rock legends
in history come up on stage and sing a song? That’s exactly what
happened at the final gig of the fall tour with Francis Dunnery and the New Progressives, this past Friday in Oswestry UK. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Mr. Robert Plant.
If you can’t see the video, follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRG7gPwPGCo
We’d
been touring throughout the U.K. and have had some great musical guests
sit in for a song or two, on any given night. The buzz among the band
was that for the last show, Robert Plant would come and sing “Calling
To You” with us (we recorded a new version of the song on Francis’ new CD).
Mr. Plant had fun with it, complete with stream-of-consciousness
jokes about progressive rock that you can hear at the beginning of my
keyboard solo. It went something like this:
“It’s
getting really ‘prog’ now. Ooh. Mountains come out of the sea and
they just stand there. I used to know Jon Anderson, you know. And I
worked with Jethro Tull too. It was fantastic! All that standing on
your own like that with a flute….”
Less
than 24 hours later, we were on a plane back to the U.S., a bit exhausted
but still laughing about it all. Thanks to all the friends, old and
new, who came to see the tour, and thanks to Francis, Dorie Jackson,
Brett Kull, Jamie Bishop, and Paul Ramsey for being such a great band
to be a part of. --Tom Brislin