Maggie May
Stay With Me
Reason to Believe
Every Picture Tells a Story
Ya know.....the young Rod.....the Rod w/the Faces....not that disco shit. I mean:
I mean Rod Stewart dammit! Now, I certainly don't have any problem with your standards--your, oldtime favorites. The thing is though, when I hear an old standard, I want it to be song by someone like.....oh, maybe:
I think they call him "The Chairman of the Board" people. Francis Albert Sinatra.
Nuff said.
Now then, back to my Rod DVD. So I begin to watch it, and ya know, old Rod isn't the young punk he was back in the day....he's actually 60 now! And I couldn't help but wonder if Rod's voice---for so long the one thing that seperated him from so many others--was finally gone. I had seen Rod back in the late 80's at the old Miami Arena--even managed to score primo 3rd seats (and got hit in the head with a pair of panties by an amorous fan)--and he was great. So the concert begins, and Rod truthfully, finally appears to be having a little age settle in his face....opens up with "You Wear it Well". And the voice.....eh. It wasn't sounding up to par. Then Rod goes into "Some Guys Have all the Luck" and again, I'm thinking that the voice is not sounding like it used to, and I'm thinking how sad this DVD is going to be, watching one of the really great voices of the rock era finally "hit the wall". Rod then did a nice little tribute to the late Robert Palmer, and ripped into a cover of Palmer's classic "Addicted to Love". Problem was, the band backing Stewart sounded great, but Rod's voice was straining noticeably. I thought the tribute was a nice idea, but only ended up showing how great Palmer had been during his heyday.
And then...a funny thing happened. Rod slowed it down a bit, by going into one of his old classics "Handbags & Gladrags", and I noticed.....I noticed that his voice suddenly began to hit the notes they weren't hitting in the previous song. I thought perhaps it was due to the choice of songs. He followed it up with Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe" (one of my personal fave's) and sure as hell.....Rod's voice was suddenly sounding good! Next up Rod gave the crowd a nice surpise by announcing that he would be joined by friends from time to time during the show and asked his old friend Ron Wood to join him on stage. Wood & Stewart of course, were the two most famous members of the Faces back in the early 70's, before Rod went solo and Woody joined another band---um....oh yeah, the Stones...something like that. They ripped into "Stay with Me", and Rod & Ron sounded great on the old song about a girl named "Rita"......."who's perfume, smelled 'sweeta', than when I saw her down on the floor"....ahem...sorry, momentary digress. Next up, Rod offered a nice little toast to all the soldiers in Iraq and serving all over the world and dedicated "Rhythm of my Heart" to them--again, his voice served him well. He then tore the joint down with "Hot Legs", discussing how the song was done back in his "wilder, younger days". Next up on the plate was Cat Stevens' "The First Cut is the Deepest" (done recently--and horribly--by Cheryl Crow) and Rod's voice--whiskey soaked & raw as an open wound--was absolutely perfect. This is a song that has to be song by someone who's LIVED the pain, and as I listened, I couldn't help think of the stories of how miserable Stewart was a few years back after being left by then wife Rachel Hunter. The 'first cut is the deepest' indeed. Finally Rod finished up the first portion of the show (a "one night only" performance the fall of 2004) with "Your in my Heart", wearing the jersey of his beloved Celtic United football club.
Following a brief intermission (obviously skipped on the DVD), Rod came out dressed in tux complete with tails and began to sang some of the old standards.
Here was the point I was worried about. He lead off this portion of his performance with "They Can't Take that Away from Me"--nicely done, nothing stupendous, but I managed to avoid the button that would've skipped me ahead in the show. He followed that up with "Blue Moon", again, done nicely. Then the show really heated up as Stewart sang "What a Wonderful World", which was made famous by Louis Armstrong (and featured of course in the film "Good Morning Vietnam"). He starts to sing, and is maybe about 4 seconds into the performance when my wife says:
"I like the other guy's version better."
"Well, that's nice....since you've listened to all of 5 seconds of Rod's version."
Wife leaves room in a slight huff.
Ahem....anyway, I thought Rod really did a great job on the song. Is it the new "definitive" version of the song? Maybe not, but its damn good. The song was especially poignant as Rod sang the line about:
"....I hear babies cry....I watch them grow.....they'll learn much more...than I'll ever know....and I think to myself...what a wonderful world...."
As Stewart was singing the line, the camera cut away to a shot of two young women in the balcony at the concert, who may have been Stewart's daughters...and it was a nice moment. Next up Rod introduced Chrissie Hynde, who joined him in singing "As Time Goes By"--honestly, on this song, Chrissie sounded better. Before the concert Chrissie remarked in an interview what a huge influence Stewart had been on the Pretenders during his days with the Faces. Rod closed out the 2nd portion of the concert with a nice cover of Sam Cooke's "For Sentimental Reasons".
The 3rd and final segment of the evening featured Rod coming out in a bright yellow jacket and tie, introducing a young singer named Amy Belle, who sings like a young Chrissie Hynde and joined Rod in singing "I Don't Want to Talk About It" and did a very nice job, despite looking legitimately nervous at her first big performance. Ron Wood rejoined Stewart on stage for a double shot of "Maggie May" and "Gasoline Alley". Earlier, Rod got off a great line about how whenever he and Wood appeared on stage that they fight over who's going to stand on the right side, giving them their best profile. Rod then stated that when he & Wood stand next to one another they "looked like a giant pick axe". Finally, Rod closed the evening out being joined by a gospel choir and sending everyone home happy with a soaring rendition of "Sailing".
A few months back, I went to a concert and laughed when a fan in the front row asked the lead singer to "play the old stuff"--at which point the singertold the guy that they would get to that "after you hear our new songs". Luckily for Rod, his new songs were the old songs....and after a rough start....they both sounded just fine.
Later,
Jeff
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