Robert Plant and his audience have an unspoken agreement.
In concert, the leonine English rock singer will include a handful of songs by a very popular band he used to sing with.
In turn, Led Zeppelin-loving loyalists will grant Plant license to do what he really wants: explore the roots and branches of American blues and country, misty mountain British folk, and North African trance music that underpinned the Led Zep hammer of the gods sound from the get-go.
That deal went down to richly rewarding effect on Saturday at the Met Philadelphia, where Plant brought his new band, Saving Grace with Suzi Dian, to make their Philadelphia debut in a show that put Plant’s restless creative spirit and ardent devotion to his muse on display in revelatory ways.
After the evening began with a spirited set by self-proclaimed “Rockabilly Filly” Rosie Flores — too bad she doesn’t spell it with a “Ph” — that included covers of Wanda Jackson, the Everly Brothers, and the Blasters, Plant and the five members of Saving Grace took to the stage.
They began with “The Very Day I’m Gone,” a sorrowful Appalachian folk ballad most recently recorded by young bluegrass star Nora Brown. Plant and Dian — who played accordion and guitar as well as acting as Plant’s vocal counterpart — faced each other at a distance at the front of the stage, wringing the forlorn emotion out of lyrics while Matt Worley’s plucked banjo reverberated through the majestic opera house.
Throughout their 100-minute, 15-song set, the band — which is made up of musicians Plant began collaborating with in 2019 — pulled from a mix of ancient yet fully alive sounding traditional songs, mixed in covers of more contemporary songwriters like Neil Young, Gillian Welch, and Low, as well Plant’s own ample catalog.
“It’s good to be back in this remarkable town,” said Plant, 77, by way of introduction recalling that he first visited in 1969, when Led Zeppelin played the original Electric Factory at 22nd and Arch Street. “We come from the Welsh borders. We kick up a fuss, we’ve done a lot of work together, and we hope that you like what we’ve got for you.”
The Saturday night Philly crowd was rowdy, with Plant’s contemporaries mixed in with generations-younger fans happy to be in the presence of the gracefully aging Golden God. Sometimes a bit too rowdy, with lots of chatter and shout-outs of adoration in quieter and between-song moments.
What was it that Plant said about buying his first Bob Dylan album in the 1960s? I couldn’t tell you because of the cheerful chatter coming from the row behind me. At one point, Plant got a little irked himself, shushing one particularly loud interrupter by asking: “Am I doing this up here, or are you?”
When Led Zep songs came around, no shushing was necessary. All of this tour, the fourth song on the set list has been “Ramble on,” the song from 1969’s Led Zeppelin II on which Plant nerded out as a fanboy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, name-dropping Gollum and setting the song “in the depths of Mordor.”
The crowd at the Met knew it was coming and had mobile phones out en masse, ready to record. The performance didn’t disappoint, with Plant, whose still robust voice was in fine shape all evening, starting off contemplative and dreamy as the season changes.
“Leaves are falling all around, it’s time I was on my way,” he sang, before kicking hard on the chorus, vowing to keep moving, as he has assiduously done in the 46 years since Led Zeppelin broke up. “Now’s the time, the time is now — ramble on!”
For the last two decades, Plant has been at his most creatively vital when he pairs off with formidable women on stage and on record. He made two albums each with Patty Griffin and Alison Krauss, the later of whom he won multiple Grammys with for 2007’s Raising Sand and who accompanied him on his most recent Philly-area date at Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic in Camden in 2024.
Dian is not nearly so well-known as Griffin or Krauss, but she’s a worthy successor, twining her voice beautifully around Plant’s throughout, and also taking a stunning, completely unshowy star turn on a pristine version of Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl,” with Plant contributing ghostly harmony while sitting in the shadows at stage left.
Saving Grace impressed as a legitimate working ensemble. Plant is first among equals, of course — “The leader of this pack,” as Dian called him — and he commanded the stage charismatically, whether letting out a trademark ululation or simply playing understated air guitar.
But everybody got their shine while the group worked together as a unit. Barney Morse-Brown’s cello elicited shivers on the heart-rending “As I Roved Out,” as Plant and Dian sang of a love that “is a killing thing.”
Worley came in as a third lead vocalist on Brother Claude Ely’s “Ain’t No Grave.” And drummer Oli Jefferson, Dian’s husband, powered the band with his uncluttered playing, crystal clear in the cavernous room.
The strategically placed Led Zeppelin songs were four. “The Rain Song,” from 1973’s Houses of the Holy, played for the first time on this tour, and the set-closing psychedelic folk “Friends,” from 1970’s Led Zeppelin III.
But the special treat that most delighted the crowd was the encore-opening “Going to California,” from 1971’s Led Zeppelin IV, which Plant had not performed since 2019.
“Made up my mind to make a brand new start,” Plant sang in a 55-year-old song that could qualify as a mantra for a career that’s continually renewing, and as he remains the most vital of classic rockers by always seeking out new beginnings that connect back to an inexhaustible past.
Plant then finished with “Everybody’s Song,” from indie band Low, singing with Dian of “breaking everybody’s heart” and “singing everybody’s song.” Then he reintroduced the band, and made a hopeful Easter weekend promise. “We’re Saving Grace,” he said, “and we’re just getting started.”
Robert Plant and Saving Grace with Suzi Dian setlist, Met Philadelphia, April 4, 2026
“The Very Day I’m Gone”
“The Cuckoo”
“Higher Rock”
“Ramble on”
“Ain’t No Grave”
“Let the Four Winds Blow”
“Orphan Girl”
“The Rain Song”
“Gospel Plow”
“Calling to You”
“As I Roved Out”
“For the Turnstiles”
“Friends”
Encore
“Going to California”
“Everybody’s Song”