The latest issue of UNCUT magazine is a must for any FACES fan, here's what editor ALLAN JONES had to say.
'When Rod Stewart played Twickenham Stadium last summer, I was inclined to attend, and not only because I live down that way. No, there was rather more to me going than mere convenience. There was, for instance an abiding affection for those first four great solo albums he did – An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells A Story and Never A Dull Moment – that down the years has remained undimmed, and survived even the most cringe-inducing episodes of Rod’s subsequent career.
The show, as it turned out, was better than I could earlier have imagined, once I’d got over the shock of realising that Rod’s audience these days largely seems to consist of alcoholic divorcees, who arrived by the coach-load, squeezed into clothes that wouldn’t fit their children and were determined to treat the entire evening as a mass karaoke session.
He did all the solo hits, of course, as you’d expect, but the show’s unilateral highlight for me came at the end of the first half, with a raucous version of the old Faces favourite, “Stay With Me”, which was accompanied by hilarious archive footage of that band, in all their rowdy glory.
It was a brilliant reminder that at their peak in the early ’70s, The Faces were nigh-on unbeatable – a fantastic mix of swashbuckling bravado, reckless living, ribald humour, great musicianship, fantastic songs and impeccably dishevelled showmanship.
As David Cavanagh points out in this month’s cover story, for a time The Faces were the only band who could truly give the Stones a run for their money. And who knows? If the Stones hadn’t nicked Ronnie Wood, thus effectively bringing down the curtain on The Faces’ riotous career, they might even have gone on to eclipse them...'
allan_jones@ipcmedia.com
THE FACES plus free CD!
Boisterous boozers, committed hotel-wreckers… Rod and the boys were one of Britain’s most underrated bands. But who really killed off the loveable shock-haired rockers, and will they reform for that one last round? And this one’s on us: Ooh-La-La!, a 15-track, 100% goodtime selection of rock’n’roll in the spirit of The Faces, with Howlin Rain, Drive-By Truckers, The Hold Steady and more…
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