The Bourbon & Beyond music festival was this past weekend in Louisville, and I made the road trip there on Saturday to partake in the festivities. The MAIN reason I wanted to attend, specifically on Saturday, is because I wanted to check off seeing Robert Plant in concert off of my bucket list. I grew up in a Led Zeppelin house. I taught myself how to play the drums to Zeppelin albums (R.I.P. John Bohnam.) So I talked my cousin Ken, who lives in Indy, into meeting me in Louisville for the night.
Our day started with a sampling of the Blackened American Whiskey brand (which is a joint venture between the distiller and Metallica.) Then our next stop was a V.I.P. event at the Angel’s Envy bourbon speakeasy, which was very impressively set up as an indoor forest. We watched a few of the performances into the afternoon, and then headed over to see Tiffani Thiessen take the stage for a cooking demonstration. If you just read that sentence and thought to yourself, “Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell is a chef?” Don’t worry, that was my first reaction as well! But, as it turns out, she had her own show on the cooking channel called “Dinner at Tiffani’s.” Unfortunately, as you can tell from my picture, a LOT of other people had the same idea. So we weren’t able get close enough to actually see her on stage. My inner child was crushed…But I digress.
Hall & Oates took the stage prior to Robert Plant, and if I’m being honest, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about seeing them live. HOWEVER, they put on a great show, and I was very impressed with their performance. Daryl Hall’s voice is as good as it’s ever been, and it was reminder of how many hits they’ve had. Basically song after song the crowd was singing along to every one. Finally, the main event! The reason for my road trip to the festival, Robert Plant took the stage. I’ll admit, it was a bizarre concert. He has had many solo projects since his Led Zeppelin days, including a lot of bluegrass style stuff, so the performance was a hodge-podge of Zeppelin songs, bluegrass, and his solo rock stuff. But honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if he sangs kids nursery rhymes…He’s a living legend, and I was in total fanboy mode.
