Robert Plant to Bring Sensational Space Shifters on the Road

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Robert Plant will hit the road again this year with his Sensational Space Shifters backing band for a tour that wraps itself around festival appearances at Sasquatch and Bonnaroo. The Pixies will open select dates, while singer-songwriter J.D. McPherson will open a handful of others.

The tour also begins one month after Plant releases a new EP, More Roar, as a 10-inch vinyl release for Record Store Day (April 18th). The limited-edition record contains four songs he recorded on his 2014 tour in support of Lullaby, including “Turn It Up/Arbaden” on the A-side, backed with “Poor Howard” and his radical remaking of Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love (Medley).”

Although Plant includes reworkings of songs by his alma mater in his solo performances, he said last year that he has no desire to reunite with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones for a tour. “You’re going back to the same old shit,” he told Rolling Stone last May of the prospect. “A tour would have been an absolute menagerie of vested interests and the very essence of everything that’s shitty about big-time stadium rock. We were surrounded by a circus of people that would have had our souls on the fire. I’m not part of a jukebox!”

In a separate interview with Rolling Stone, he explained why he was so excited to be working with the Sensational Space Shifters. “We bring in all the aspects of being European, leaning on Africa and the Delta,” Plant said. “It’s pretty virile stuff, and it has come from our countless hours of trudging the endless highways. If we’d just met in a room somewhere, we’d have never gone anywhere near this.”

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters Tour Dates:

May 24 – George, WA @ Sasquatch! Festival
May 25 – Bend, OR @ Les Schwab Amphitheater
May 27 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot *
May 28 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl *
May 30 – Napa, CA @ BottleRock Festival
May 31 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl *
June 2 – Los, Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre *
June 5 – Hunter, NY @ Mountain Jam Festival
June 7 – Toronto, ONT @ Molson Amphitheatre **
June 9 – Rochester Hills, MI @ Meadowbrook Music Festival **
June 10 – Chicago, IL @ FirstMerit Bank Pavilion @ Northerly Island **
June 12 – Memphis, TN @ Mud Island Amphitheatre
June 12 – June 14 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Festival
June 15 – Raleigh, NC @ Koka Booth Amphitheater **
June 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Mann Center **

* With JD McPherson
** With Pixies