Bankers and badgers go wild in the country
Robert Plant Wilderness Festival, Oxon
‘Come on in,” beckoned Robert Plant to the crowd as he headlined the opening day of the Wilderness Festival in the Cotswolds.
His words were apt. Under a cloud free summer sky, the Led Zeppelin singer seemed to be inviting us to step into his unique musical world, an intriguing place that melded the past with the present, the blues with African rhythms, Midlands rock with hippy-dippy West Coast folk.
With his band, the Sensational Space Shifters, the 67-year-old both embraced and reimagined his peerless back catalogue in front of a rapt audience that included Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England. Zeppelin’s Black Dog was instantly recognisable. Yet its guitar riff was broken in two and slowed down. By the end, the song had morphed into an uptempo world music jam centred around Gambian Juldeh Camara’s virtuosity on the riti, a single-stringed fiddle.
The band did this time and again, fusing and stretching, twisting and transforming, while managing to maintain interest rates in the process. Zeppelin classics Dazed and Confused,
Whole Lotta Love and Rock and Roll were simultaneously themselves and something different, with the joins invisible. The most faithful rendition was Going to California, the wistful ballad from Led Zeppelin IV. Backed by acoustic guitar, mandolin and double bass, Plant transported this small corner of Oxfordshire to the misty hills of Seventies’ Big Sur. It was stunning.
In fine voice and with no mention of the recent, high-profile Stairway to
Heaven plagiarism lawsuit – which he and Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page won – Plant looked to be having a ball. It was the band’s only UK show this year and a musical treat, all the better as it was done entirely on Plant’s own terms.
The crowd loved it. Carney, a Wilderness regular and clearly a Zeppelin fan, told the Telegraph he thought Plant’s set was “brilliant”.
Wilderness, as Carney’s presence may attest, is the ultimate middle-class festival. In the pretty Cornbury Park just outside Charlbury, it is a bouillabaisse of music, food, theatre, talks and acre upon acre of boutique camping. Whether you’re after food from Moro, a yoga session with drum ’n’ bass legend Goldie, fly-fishing lessons or the chance to – bafflingly – hang out in a secret den full of people dressed as badgers (the Chipping Norton sett?), it’s all here. It’s not edgy, but it’s the lushest of lush green bubbles. In an outside world full of horrible things, that’s not a bad place for a weekend.
Plant’s show was followed by a chunky midnight set by Chicago house music legend Derrick Carter, played in a wonderful natural wooded arena called The Valley, full to its 6,000 capacity. Under a glade of laser-lit trees, it was Studio 54 meets
Countryfile. After two hours of joyous music, even the ridiculous badger costumes started to make sense.