August '22 Digital Week IV

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Breaking 

(Bleecker Street)

The profoundly sad story of Brian Brown-Easley, a forgotten veteran at the end of his rope who decides to rob a bank one day in 2017 when he realizes the VA withholding his benefits might make him homeless, is recounted in Abi Damaris Corbin’s straightforward drama, which unfortunately too often feels rote and predictable, despite the messiness of Brown-Easley’s life. What prevents it from becoming routine are intense performances by Michael Kenneth Williams (in his last role before his untimely death last year) as hostage negotiator, Olivia Washington as Brown-Easley’s ex-wife and John Boyega as Brian Brown-Easley. Boyega, in fact, gives a master class in subtle acting, his understated presence all the more powerful for the rage he keeps bottled up after the many frustrations and disappointments he’s forced to deal with.

La Guerre Est Finie/The War Is Over 

(Film Desk/Film Forum)

French master Alain Resnais (1922-2014) made several classics, including Hiroshima Mon Amour, Muriel, Love Unto Death and Private Fears in Public Places. This 1966 drama, recently restored and showing at Film Forum in Manhattan, was written by Jorge Semprún and follows Diego, an anti-Francoist entering middle age who feels the bombings and threats of yesteryear are no longer effective  while confronting a younger generation that disagrees, including Nadine, the daughter of a man whose identity he’s borrowed. Yves Montand is commanding as Diego, Genevieve Bujold irresistible as Nadine and Ingrid Thulin equally good as his lover, Marianne—and Resnais memorably juggles Diego’s memories and realities, including love scenes with both women. Sacha Vierny’s splendid B&W photography and Eric Pluet and Ziva Postec’s adroit editing pull the viewer further into this absorbing exercise in politics as an abstract and a concrete reality.

4K Release of the Week 

Cat People 

(Shout Factory)

Paul Schrader’s bloated 1982 remake of the 1942 classic movie turns the gore, tastelessness and crudity up to 11 as Nastassja Kinski wanders around in various states of undress while Malcolm McDowell, playing her brother, makes incestuous passes at her. Meanwhile, killings and maulings keep occurring; could it be the feline-like siblings? Schrader makes it all as urgent and compelling as a trip to the dentist, although there are beautiful-looking sequences and an intriguing electronic Giorgio Moroder score (featuring David Bowie’s title tune, which sounds better on his subsequent album, Let’s Dance). The visuals look eye-poppingly good in 4K, which also includes a Schrader commentary; the accompanying Blu-ray disc also includes several new and vintage interviews with director, cast and crew.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Jenůfa 

(Opus Arte)

The first wave of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s great operas centered on tragic heroines: together with Káťa Kabanová and The Makropulos Case, which followed it, Jenůfa is a triumphant and insightful music drama, as Oliver Mears’ 2021 staging at London’s Royal Opera House shows. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian plays the demanding title role sensitively and intelligently, the great Finnish soprano Karita Matilla is just as powerful as Kostelnicka, her stepmother, and conductor Henrik Nánási leads the orchestra and chorus in a gripping account of Janáček’s intense score. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

Symphony for a Massacre 

(Cohen Film Collection)

In Jacques Deray’s electrifying 1963 crime drama, the double and triple crossings happen so numerously that at times one might not keep up with who’s betraying whom—the title perfectly describes the plot, shrewdly without giving anything away. There’s gritty B&W cinematography by Claude Renoir, a finely tuned musical score by Michel Magne and a terrific cast comprising Jean Rochefort, Charles Vanel, Michel Auclair and Jose Giovanni (who co-wrote the script with Deray and Claude Sautet). Some of Cohen’s French finds are less than stellar, but this one is worth seeing. There’s an excellent Blu-ray transfer; lone extra is a 28-minute appreciation of the film.

DVD Releases of the Week

Blue Bloods—Complete 12th Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

In this, the most recent season of the surprisingly long-running police drama (it’s just been renewed for a 13th season) that explores the family of NYC police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck)—whose sons are NYPD detectives, daughter an assistant DA and father a retired commissioner—a cold case and an infant’s killing are among the many investigations. Throughout this season’s 20 episodes, the always reassuring stoic presence of Selleck is balanced by the more interesting Bridget Moynihan (daughter) and Len Cariou (father), to carry this derivative but well-paced procedural. Extras include deleted scenes, featurettes and a gag reel.

Donbass 

(Film Movement)

In Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s 2018 antiwar drama set during the 2014 conflict in his home country, the insanity of fighting among neighbors and—most excruciatingly—taking horrific advantage of whatever humanity is left is displayed truthfully and unflinchingly through a series of interrelated vignettes. They range from the brutally shocking to the blackly comic, but Loznitsa is in supreme control throughout, daringly ending his film with a heinous massacre followed by an interminably long static shot that keeps us on edge right through the final credits.

CD Release of the Week

Hans Rosbaud Conducts French Music—Recordings 1952-1962 

(SWR Classic)

Although he’s definitely not a household name like other Germanic conductors of the postwar era such as Herbert von Karajan and Karl Bohm, Austrian Hans Rosbaud gained considerable critical success leading orchestras across Europe, and SWR Classic has already released several boxed sets of him conducting everyone from Mozart and Beethoven to Wagner, Mahler and Sibelius. This worthwhile set, which includes superb performances by the Sudwestfunk-Orchester Baden-Baden, not only covers the best French composers like Debussy and Ravel but also others who might not be as well-known but whose music is as vital, including Albert Roussel (whose third symphony is a highlight), Switzerland’s Arthur Honegger (ditto his expressive third symphony), Romania’s Marcel Mihalovici (whose second symphony and toccata for piano and orchestra are revelations) and Olivier Messiaen (whose complex Chronochrome received its world premiere recording from Rosbaud in 1960).

August '22 Digital Week III

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Hôtel du Nord 

(Criterion)

French director Marcel Carné was unparalleled when it came to creating memorable, thoroughly original slices of poetic realism onscreen: his 1938 masterpiece was made after his first mature film, 1937’s Port of Shadows, and before 1939’s lovely Le jour se leve, both written with his greatest collaborator, poet Jacques Prevert, who also wrote the director’s supreme classic, 1945’s Children of Paradise. These films share many of the same characteristics: effervescent, romantic, lively, loving looks at the relationships among several interlocking characters, here played by, among others, the great French stars Annabella, Arletty and Louis Jouvet. Criterion’s usual superb release includes a spectacular-looking new hi-def transfer, which brings to the fore Louis Née and Armand Thirard’s extraordinary B&W photography; extras comprise a 1994 documentary about Carné, a 1972 TV program about the film’s making, and a new interview with Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet about Carné’s influence.

The Burned Barns 

(Cohen Film Collection)

This routine 1973 French policier was directed by Jean Chapot, a competent veteran who brings little originality or wit to this would-be tense murder mystery, as magistrate Alain Delon arrives in a small farm village to investigate the strange death of a young woman. Both Delon and Simone Signoret (as the mother of a prime suspect) use their considerable charisma to overcome a turgid script and unconvincing direction; only Sacha Vierny’s gritty photography makes much of an impression. There’s a superior hi-def transfer; extras are interviews with crew members.

Naked Over the Fence 

(Cult Epics)

Before becoming an international sensation in the erotic classic Emmanuelle the following year, Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel starred as a pop singer who gets involved with making a stag movie in this silly 1973 crime drama by director Frans Weisz. Kristel’s effortless charm is on display throughout, even though the movie is nothing special. Still, the actress brightens things up whenever she appears. The film looks decent on Blu; extras include behind the scenes footage, an audio commentary, audio interviews with Weisz and composer Ruud Bos, and a limited edition CD of Bos’ soundtrack.

In-Theater Release of the Week

Three Minutes—A Lengthening 

(Neon)

A short home movie discovered decades after it was shot is the lynchpin of director Bianca Stigter’s illuminating and poignant documentary, which uses that bit of 16mm film showing people going about their lives in a neighborhood of Nasielsk, Poland, in 1938, to examine how such fleeting images caught by a camera can answer myriad questions, from quotidian details to more pressing queries of whether any of these people survived the coming Holocaust. In addition to being a quite moving (in both senses) historical research project, the film is also the ultimate in cinematic study, as it continuously zooms in on, slows down, pauses and rewinds the footage to glean as much information as possible, to try and resurrect and immortalize these long lost faces.

DVD Release of the Week 

NCIS Los Angeles—Complete 13th Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

In the most recent season of the NCIS franchise’s first and most successful spinoff, the latest of the group’s investigations include several of those ripped from today’s headlines, including lethally deadly trolls on the web, omnipresent white nationalist groups and the ever-shadowy Chinese intelligence. Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J continue to lead an energetic cast of dedicated professionals in a series of entertaining inquiries. This 5-disc set includes all of the season’s 22 episodes; the extras comprise several featurettes, a gag reel and deleted/extended scenes.

 

CD Release of the Week

Crepuscolo—Songs by Ottorino Respighi

(BIS)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), best known for his Roman trilogy of tone poems, was also an accomplished—and, often, inspired—creator of ravishing vocal music, including several wonderful operas and a body of songs to rival that of anyone else in the 20th century. This well-curated recital, beautifully performed by tenor Timothy Fallon and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz, provides a bracing overview of Respighi’s song output, including some of his finest groups like the Four Scottish Songs (Quattro arie scozzesi), set in English to poets like Robert Burns, but with the same melodic freedom and musical color that distinguish his brilliant orchestral works.

August '22 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Emily the Criminal 

(Roadside Attractions/Vertical Ent.)

As Emily, a young woman unable to keep a legitimate job in a society that punishes those with a rap sheet (however minor), Aubrey Plaza gives her best performance, full of her usual irony, ebullience and deadpan humor but also a strong sense of tragic desperation. But too often writer-director John Patton Ford leans into implausible melodrama, forcing his heroine to extremes—as when she’s robbed after risibly taking no precautions then immediately becomes Wonder Woman to take down the thieves—but Plaza’s focused, subtle portrayal smooths over the bumpy dramatics.

Summering 

(Bleecker Street)

Reminiscent of Stand by Me, Rob Reiner and Stephen King’s 1986 memory piece, James Ponsoldt’s mawkish drama follows four young teens in the waning days of summer who chance upon a dead body in the woods and are consumed with trying to identify him. The acting is variable—the girls’ mothers are played by Lake Bell, Megan Mullally, Sarah Cooper and Ashley Madekwe, none of whom can do much with their cardboard roles, and the four girls are interchangeably dull—the pacing is leaden, the attempts at wit and insight are threadbare and the entire 80-minute film has the feel of an interminably stretched-out short.

Le Temps perdu 

(Film Forum)

A group of Buenos Aires seniors has gotten together regularly for several years to read out loud a Spanish translation of Marcel Proust’s classic novel In Search of Lost Time, and Marĺa Álvarez’s absorbing documentary presents this real-life situation as something Proustian in itself. These men and women, as they traverse the gargantuan canvas of the lengendary six-volume masterwork, engagingly and honestly discuss their responses to the book’s characters and themes, in the process discovering how this great work of art has entered their very beings.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Yellowbrickroad 

(Lightyear)

Crossing The Blair Witch Project with Ten Little Indians gives an idea of this almost unbearably static drama (made in 2010) that follows several researchers following in the footsteps of an entire New Hampshire town’s denizens, who mysteriously disappeared several decades earlier. Watching people act strangely as they are targeted by an unseen malevolent force they cannot escape from becomes as urgent and scary as watching paint dry in the hands of directors Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton. The film looks fine on Blu; extras include directors’ commentary, featurettes and cast/crew interviews.

DVD Releases of the Week 

NCIS—Complete 19th Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

One of network television’s most successful franchises, the NCIS umbrella now encompasses several series—three spinoffs, set in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Hawaii, respectively; and the original, set in Washington D.C.—all smartly using their locales for their rigorous investigations. In the latest season of the original (never fear, the 20th season will premiere in the fall), Mark Harmon’s chief retires and is replaced by Gary Cole, but the team still has to hit the ground running as they take on several highly sensitive, dangerous cases to solve. The tension is ratcheted up by bombings, deadly toxins, kidnappings, etc., throughout these 21 episodes. Extras include featurettes, interviews and an NCIS: Hawaii crossover episode. 

Pam & Tommy 

(Lionsgate)

She’s helped greatly by makeup and prosthetics, but British actress Lily James’ remarkable transformation into Pam Anderson provides a sympathetic portrait of an actress-model who was pretty much a punch line in her ’90s heyday, from Playboy spreads to Baywatch appearances and, of course, the infamous sex tape with then-husband Tommy Lee, the focus of this compulsively watchable eight-episode series. Sebastian Stan as Lee gives fine support; although he can’t completely avoid caricature, he’s far better than Seth Rogen, who gives a one-note portrayal of Rand Gauthier, who stole the couple’s sex tape hoping to cash in big. Buoying up the Rand subplot is Taylor Schilling, who winningly plays a porn actress who falls for the ultimate loser. 

CD Release of the Week 

Per Nørgård—8 Symphonies 

(Dacapo)

Danish composer Per Nørgård (b. 1932) has quietly amassed one of the most imposing symphonic legacies of the past 100 years, as this extraordinary boxed set comprising all eight of his symphonies demonstrates. From his very first, the aptly titled “Sinfonia austera,” composed between 1953 and 1956, to his latest, the engagingly rhythmic eighth (2010-11), Nørgård has showcased his imaginative and varied orchestral writing. Although the highlights of this set are plenty, most memorable are the emotional third symphony (1972-75), which is joined by choral forces and an alto soloist; and 1999’s sixth symphony, a vigorous workout for large orchestra subtitled “At the End of the Day.” Perhaps most impressive about this set—recorded between 2009 and 2016—is that these works are performed by three different ensembles (the Oslo and Vienna philharmonics as well as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus), led by three different conductors (John Storgards, Sakari Oramo and Thomas Dausgaard, respectively), but Nørgård’s music sounds of a piece throughout.

2022 Summer Festivals—Bard Summerscape and Tanglewood

Bard Summerscape

Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Through August 14, 2022

Fishercenter.bard.edu

Tanglewood

Lenox, Mass.

Through September 4, 2022

tanglewood.org

Richard Strauss' opera The Silent Woman at Bard Summerscape
(photo: Stephanie Berger)

More than two years into the pandemic, summer music festivals are getting back to normal. There were still masks being worn in the Sosnoff Theater at Bard College, whose annual Bard Summerscape returned to its lovely campus two-plus hours north of New York City, for a Richard Strauss operatic rarity, Der schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman), but at Tanglewood, on the equally bucolic campus in the Berkshires, masks were optional for concerts at the outdoor Koussevitzky Music Shed and the indoor Seiji Ozawa Hall.

The Silent Woman contains some of Strauss’ most luscious and elegant music at the service of a knockabout comedy that may have seemed beneath the composer of such opera masterworks as Elektra, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Capriccio. The libretto, by the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and based on, of all things a play by the Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson, concerns Sir Morosus, a rich and retired admiral who cannot abide noise of any kind. 

Enter his beloved nephew, Henry, who has, to the morose Morosus’ consternation, joined a opera troupe and even married one of the performers, Aminta. Morosus disinherits his nephew in a fit of pique. Morosus’ barber and Henry then concoct a ruse that a disguised, “quiet” Aminta will become the old man’s wife—only to then noisily force a divorce, which will presumably reinstate Henry’s inheritance. The rest of the opera concerns the rough-and-tumble comedy of Aminta, Henry, the Barber and the troupe making life a living hell for Morosus.

German director Christian Räth’s decision to stage The Silent Woman as an opera-within-an-opera isn’t very original, but it’s effective in this context: even if it’s far too long (over four hours) for the amusing if slight material, this elaborate in-joke celebrating performers leans on Mattie Ullrich’s garishly funny costumes, Räth’s own cleverly tongue-in-cheek sets and Rick Fisher’s seductive lighting.

The singers are up to the task of Strauss’ luminous but demanding vocal writing. Harold Wilson (Morosus), Edward Nelson (Barber) and David Portillo (Henry) sound terrific in the main male roles, but the true focus is on Jana McIntyre, who plays the spirited Aminta with a lightness and buoyant vocalism that marks her as a fantastic interpreter of Strauss heroines. Leon Botstein capably leads the American Symphony Orchestra—and James Bagwell does the honors for the Bard Festival Chorale—in yet another of Botstein’s necessary operatic excavations.

                             *                    *                    *                    *

At Tanglewood, two concerts in one day (July 31) brought a surfeit of great sounds. First, for the afternoon concert in the shed, the Boston Symphony Orchestra was led by its music director, Andris Nelsons, in wonderfully precise readings of two works by women: first, the world premiere of Elizabeth Ogonek’s vigorous and humorous orchestral workout, Starling Variations; and 19th century French composer Louise Ferrenc’s derivative but propulsive Symphony No. 3. Then, after intermission, we got to witness a master at work: English pianist Paul Lewis, finishing his traversal of all five Beethoven piano concertos in a single weekend with the monumental fifth concerto, the “Emperor.” Lewis was scintillating but in masterly control throughout, and even the most jaded audience member responded enthusiastically to this superlative performance.

That evening, it was the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra’s turn in the intimate Ozawa Hall. This ensemble, put together every summer with students chosen from all across the country and around the world, spends eight weeks rehearsing and playing together, and this concert of lesser-known 20th-century pieces made from an illuminating and impressive night of music.

The conductors comprised two Tanglewood student fellows and two established veterans. The fellows were Nicolo Foron from Italy, who led the opener, Debussy’s Printemps, and Rita Castro Blanco from Portugal, who was on the podium for Lumina by Olly Wilson. Both had fine command of the orchestra in difficult but accessible works. In between, Ades led the ensemble in a finely articulated reading of Agon, one of Stravinsky’s 12-tone works. The evening ended with a rousing version of Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, led by JoAnn Falletta, the longtime music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, making her belated Tanglewood debut at this concert and making sure with this bracing performance that she will be welcomed back.

August '22 Digital Week I

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

I Love My Dad 

(Magnolia Pictures)

Based on writer-director-star James Morosin’s own experiences, this darkly comic character study dissects young Franklin’s frayed relationship with Chuck, his estranged father, and how Chuck, wanting to remain connected, ends up catfishing Franklin by creating a fake Facebook profile for a local waitress named Becca and responding to Franklin’s ever more affectionate texting. It all remains a bit creepy, as it’s supposed to be, but Morosin isn’t an accomplished enough filmmaker to make it more insightful. Still, Patton Oswalt gives one of his best performances as Chuck and newcomer Claudia Sulewski is delightful as the unwitting Becca, whom Chuck morphs into Franklin’s dream woman.

Medusa 

(Music Box Films)

In Anita Rocha da Silveira’s toughminded satire, Mari and a group of likeminded evangelical young women prowl the streets physically abusing those they deem to be too sinful, even while remain blissfully (or is that willfully?) unaware that they are helping to promote a fascistic regime that is also deeply misogynist. The problem with the film is that, after setting up this unsettling glimpse of contemporary society rife with hypocrisy—which has its parallels to what is actually happening in her native Brazil and elsewhere—da Silveira concentrates on eye-popping colors and visual style, so much that the repetitiveness becomes grating after two hours. But in lead actress Mari Oliveria the director has a remarkably vital collaborator.

Resurrection 

(IFC Films)

Even a powerhouse performance by Rebecca Hall can’t save this risible, ultimately imbecile concoction by director/writer Andrew Semans, who has made an unholy, always grating hybrid of the worst impulses of David Cronenberg and Peter Greenaway (even the score by Jim Williams at times sounds like what Michael  Nyman used to turn out for Greenaway). What might have been a slow-burning psychological horror story about a woman whose past returns in the form of an abusive ex is, instead, ridiculously obvious, signaling its unsubtlety 20 minutes in, when Hall dreams about a finding something cooking in her oven. It’s all downhill from there, with nary a shred of narrative or dramatic coherence, let alone anything incisive, to be found.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Apples 

(Cohen Media)

Greek director Christos Nikou’s intimate study of identity loss, set during a worldwide pandemic that leaves its victims with no memories, follows an ordinary man, Aris, whose amnesia puts him in a recovery program. As Aris builds a new life that includes new memories, Nikou gently suggests, through razor-sharp images that take in the full absurdity of modern life, that the way out of a global catastrophe might start from within; it is an understated but humanizing drama. The tight 4x3 aspect ratio perfectly reflects the protagonist’s claustrophobic world and is nicely rendered on the excellent Blu-ray transfer; extras are two interviews with Nikou, one including executive producer Cate Blanchett.

Battle of the Worlds 

(Film Detective)

Describing this cheesy sci-fi flick as a B-movie damns it with faint praise, as Italian director Antonio Margheriti crams much mediocrity into the 80 minutes that make up this loud, empty exercise in “the world’s going to end” melodrama. Only Claude Rains, as a veteran scientist who’s humanity’s last hope, does what might be charitably called acting, and the Z-grade special effects are laughably amateurish throughout. A bonus featurette about Margheriti, by film historian Tim Lucas, and audio commentary by film historian Justin Humphreys end up making the case that this might be best seen on a tiny B&W screen.

DVD Release of the Week

Fanny—The Right to Rock 

(Film Movement)

I thought I knew my classic rock, but Fanny—an all-female hard-rock group that released albums and toured in the early ’70s to critical acclaim but popular indifference—was a band I knew nothing about, so happily, Bobbi Jo Hart’s documentary sets things right by chronicling the women’s long-ago career, comeback and how those in the know (like David Bowie) hyped them. The Sacramento-based Fanny’s energetic tunes are showcased in vintage clips; there’s also new material the latest incarnation has put together as well as a healthy dose of archival and new interviews that provide an intimate glimpse at a band more rock fans should know about. Plentiful extras include additional interviews and deleted scenes.

Concert Review—Heart’s Ann Wilson at Sony Hall, NYC

Ann Wilson

July 26, 2022

Sony Hall, New York City

August 2, 2022

AON Grand Ballroom, Chicago

AnnWilson.com

Ann Wilson in concert at Sony Hall, NYC (photo: Criss Cain)

On her current tour—which stopped at New York City’s Sony Hall July 26 and comes to Chicago August 2—Ann Wilson deftly balances the well-chosen covers that dominate her three solo albums, including her fine new Fierce Bliss CD, with classic cuts from Heart, the band with which she and sister Nancy have made their mark since the mid-’70s. (Now on hiatus, as both sisters have released solo albums in the past year, Heart is supposed to return to touring in 2023.)

Opening with the vigorous one-two punch of Heart’s “Even It Up” and “Straight On,” Wilson and her (all-male) band spent the rest of the 90-minute concert alternating between excellent covers—like their powerful versions of Jeff Buckley’s “Forget Her,” the Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” and Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs”—with classic Heart hits like “Magic Man,” “Crazy on You” and “Barracuda.” But it was in the deeper cuts of the evening where Wilson’s still-formidable voice rang out most strongly. (Although she’s now 72, Wilson’s voice remains an imposing instrument.)

On two originals from Fierce Bliss, the pounding rocker “Greed” and the stately “Black Wing,” Wilson sang impressively and with little strain. (It’s instructive to watch her while singing: unlike many rock vocalists, she makes it look effortless, even when hitting the high notes that she can still often reach.) And the lone Heart deep cut, the brooding, mystical “Mistral Wind,” allowed her to alternate between lung-shredding power and exquisite delicacy.

Queen’s “Love of My Life” also brought out Wilson’s ethereal side, as she made her own a song that most vocalists might cede to Freddie Mercury. But Wilson has never shied away from covering songs that others might hesitate to tackle, like her majestic “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. 

And it was Zeppelin—one of Heart’s most obvious influences, as anyone who hears “Achilles’ Last Stand” whenever “Barracuda’s” drum track kicks in—that dominated the encores, as Wilson ran through her superb, singular takes on the mandolin-driven “Going to California” and the pummeling “Black Dog.” One might even go so far as to say that Wilson’s versions surpassed Robert Plant himself on these songs. But that’s an argument for another day.