Boston Music Spotlight puts Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at #13 on their list of Top 28 concerts of 2008 in Boston.

13. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at the Bank of America Pavilion: The frontman from one of rock and roll’s all-time greatest bands and a bluegrass/country sweetheart. Yes, the union of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss is about as mysterious as they come in today’s music industry. Yet, their collaborative effort Raising Sand was a pleasant surprise in ‘07 and their live show in ‘08 proved to be an even more delightful treat.

J. Freedom du Lac offered up his list of Best Shows of 2008 in the Washington Post’s PostRock column. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss showed up at #5. He writes:

5. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Merriweather Post Pavilion, June 13
While the old rock-and-rollers waited anxiously for an announcement about a Led Zeppelin reunion tour, Robert Plant was busy scratching his roots-music itch with Alison Krauss and a marvelous band led by T-Bone Burnett and featuring one of my favorite multi-instrumentalists, the great Buddy Miller. It was a very different kind of blond ambition tour — one in which two sandy-haired singers from opposite ends of the world came together for an eclectic, wide-ranging exploration of American roots music. Whereas Plant, the Brit, became famous in his 20s for plying his keening voice to oft-thunderous blues-rock songs, here he was, at 59, performing haunting, atmospheric country, bluegrass, folk, soul and gospel songs — plus a little bit of Led Zeppelin — with Krauss, a fiddle-playing American Midwesterner who specializes in plaintive mountain music and wasn’t even alive when Led Zep was booked at Merriweather in 1969. The unlikely pairing resulted in a spellbinding show that was full of surprises, from the song selections (the old murder ballad “Matty Groves,” the Ray Charles country two-step, “Leave My Woman Alone,” a brooding “Black Dog”) to the nearly perfect meshing of Plant’s tenor and Krauss’s crystalline soprano. Over the Tennessee hills and far away.

Daniel Durchholz, reviewer for stltoday.com (St. Louis, MO), puts Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at #4 on his list of Best Concerts of 2008.

Vincent Jackson writing in PressOfAtlanticCity.com, adds Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to his list of 12 shows that made Atlantic City entertainment memorable in 2008.

Eric R. Danton presented his list of best concerts of 2008 in his Sound Check column. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss appear at number 7. He writes:

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, June 4, Mohegan Sun — Speaking of great voices, Plant and Krauss sang tunes from their album “Raising Sand” and dabbled in Led Zeppelin, including a cover of “The Battle of Evermore.” They also provided one of the best concert moments of the year with their heart-stopping version of the dusty hymn “Down to the River to Pray.” The song was stuck in my head for days afterward.

Jed Gottlieb of the Boston Herald offers up a list of “surprising (and/or just plain blindingly wicked)” shows of 2008. He puts Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at #2. Gottlieb writes:

2. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, at the Bank of America Pavilion, June 5.
Few thought the combination would work, but the princess of sunny bluegrass and the high priest of heavy metal and deep, dark blues came off like a musical revue co-booked by God and the Devil. The show’s centerpiece was a menacing cover of Zep’s “Battle of Evermore” that, well, to call it transcendent would sell it short. Plant held down the low end while Krauss cooed like a Middle Earth, elvish vixen.

George Varga, in SignOnSanDiego.com, writes about concerts reaching transcendence and lists Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at #2 on his list. He writes:

Whether an audience numbers in the thousands, the dozens or somewhere in between, the best concerts are a thoroughly interactive experience between performer and listener. Each relies on the other to achieve a state of temporary transcendence, whether for a few songs or a few hours…

2. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay (June 30)
The genre-leaping musical delights performed by bluegrass queen Krauss and ex-Led Zeppelin singer Plant made the distance between Nashville and London vanish in an instant.

Shay Quillen, writing in the San Jose Mercury News, mentions Robert Plant and Alison Krauss as #2 in a “10 More Outstanding Shows” aside. He writes:

10 more outstanding shows: Ray Davies @ the Warfield; Robert Plant & Alison Krauss @ the Greek; the Cure @ HP Pavilion; My Morning Jacket @ the Greek; Sia @ the Fillmore; Ingrid Michaelson @ Slim’s; Ryan Adams @ the Catalyst; the B-52s @ the Independent; Dolly Parton @ the Greek; Alejandro Escovedo @ Slim’s.

Jeffrey B. Remz, writing for Country Standard Time, posted his year-end “best” list. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are listed as “Most Magical Concert”. He writes:

Most magical concert - Alison Krauss and Robert Plant on the “Raisin’ Sand” tour. While the CD was excellent, it was also a bit tame at times. But live, they showed a lot. Plant and Krauss still seem like really strange bedfellows, but Plant deserves a tremendous amount of credit for delving into the music and not holding songs like Black Dog so sacred they cannot be touched.