Robert Plant - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 9-10-1985

Robert Plant has performed for the BBC many times over the course of his long solo career (not to mention his additional appearances as part of Led Zeppelin). But even though there's a very big interest in bootlegs of his music, I haven't seen his BBC shows put together in any systematic way. So I'm going to try to do that, starting here.

Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, with the death of drummer John Bonham. It took a couple of years for Plant to get a solo career going, but by 1985 he already had two very successful solo albums under his belt. For most of his 1980s solo concerts, he avoided his Led Zeppelin entirely. But around this time, he also was getting back in touch with his musical roots by performing lots of songs from the early years of rock and roll. That interest led to the big success of the 1984 Honeydrippers EP "Volume One," which sold over a million records in the US and spawned a couple of big hit singles too.

This concert, while relatively short, shows both of his musical sides at the time. The first six songs are from his 1980s solo albums and are in a modern rock / new wave style. The rest are all covers, generally of 1950s songs, with the exception of his solo hit "Big Log" near the end.

There are more songs played at the concert that I couldn't find with this sound quality: "Like I've Never Been Gone," "Pink and Black," "Burning Down One Side," "Too Loud," and "Messin' with the Mekon." I didn't want to mess with the recording too much, but I figured "Burning Down One Side" was a hit at a time and was a key song in his concerts that year. So I used a soundboard bootleg of a Birmingham concert hat year and added the song in the order it was played.

The order of the songs was slightly different in the bootleg I found for this concert. For instance, "Big Log" was in the first half of the concert instead of at the end. But I found a set list that I think is likely the correct order, so I moved a couple of songs around to match that. It's probable that the BBC changed the song order at the same time they cut out a few of the songs.

Out of all of the "oldies" Plant covered in concert around this time, my favorite is "(Every Time I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone." It was written and recorded by Roy Montrell in 1956. He was an in demand session guitarist, but only ever released two singles. Neither was a hit, but this one has been covered by lots of musicians because it's such a fun song. It wasn't played in this show, but I couldn't resisting adding in a version from a 1986 show. I've added it at the end as a quasi bonus track.

This concert is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 In the Mood (Robert Plant)
02 Pledge Pin (Robert Plant)
03 Little by Little (Robert Plant)
04 Burning Down One Side (Robert Plant)
05 Thru' with the Two Step (Robert Plant)
06 Slow Dancer (Robert Plant)
07 Rockin' at Midnight (Robert Plant)
08 talk (Robert Plant)
09 Young Boy Blues (Robert Plant)
10 Sea of Love (Robert Plant)
11 talk (Robert Plant)
12 Honey Hush (Robert Plant)
13 Big Log (Robert Plant)
14 talk (Robert Plant)
15 [Every Time I Hear] That Mellow Saxophone (Robert Plant)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15165007/RobertP_1985_BBSessionsVolume1InConcrtWmbleyArena__9-10-1985_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Illinois in 1985. By the way, the color in his hair is due to red lighting.