Robert Plant Cracks Jokes

Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and guitarist/producer T Bone Burnett greeted journalists and received gold and platinum plaques to mark the Canadian sales of their Raising Sand album prior to Monday night's concert at Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre.

Plant immediately sat on his award, which set the tone for the press conference. If Plant ever tires of music, he might have a future in comedy. He has a semi-angry style that borders more on disgust than indignation, kind of like a chilled-out Lewis Black. When asked about making the video for their version of The Everly Brothers' "Gone, Gone, Gone," he snorted, "We're talking about a video?"

Plant seemed genuinely surprised that people were still asking about the record, and avoided a question about the recording process by saying, "It was so long ago." It didn't come across as angry, but had more of an "Are we still on about that?" vibe.

Perhaps the best line came when an overenthusiastic journalist asked about a Led Zeppelin reunion, claiming there was "an ongoing rumour." Instead of reacting to it in the way you'd expect anyone would after being asked it a billion times, Plant broke up the entire room when he did his best impersonation of The Librarian from Hilarious House Of Frightenstein, letting his head slump into his chest and snoring, disgusted that he had to address it again. He told Krauss to wake him once the journalist had gone away.

It appeared once again that the overly analytical Canuck press had been had by one of the true legends of (as Plant himself said at this press conference) "cock rock." At least he had the decency to apologize to Krauss for such language.

Krauss said little and seemed content to let Plant and Burnett baffle the pundits and crack the jokes. The media conference ended with Burnett saying it was the best one on their tour so far. When yours truly piped up (suspecting a touch of sarcasm in his tone) with a loud "Yeah, right," he looked right at me, laughed and still claimed it was the best.

The best might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the casual attitudes and playful approach showed that they were loose and ready to perform once this silliness was out of the way.