FOOLISH BEHAVIOUR WORLD TOUR - 1981/82

here we are THE tour:
"FOOLISH BEHAVIOUR" (and it was)

Ladies and Gentlemen,
we are proud to present you:
Foolish Behaviour

(click for a larger view)

The set contains:

• Hot Legs
• Born Loose
• Tonight's The Night
• Sweet Little Rock'n Roller
• You're In My Heart
• If Lovin' You Is Wrong
• She Won't Dance With Me
• Passion
• Maggie May
• Sailing
• I Don't Want To Talk About It
• Oh Carol
• Da' Ya' Think I'm Sexy?
• You Wear It Well
• I Was Only Joking
• Gi'Me Wings

November 1980
01 Dortmund, Germany
02 Düsseldorf, Germany
04 Stuttgart, Germany
06 Graz, Austria
07 Wien, Austria
09 Zürich, Switzerland
11 Bruxelles, Belgium
12 Rotterdam, Netherlands
20 Dublin, Ireland
21 Dublin, Ireland
24 Glasgow, Scotland
25 Glasgow, Scotland
26 Glasgow, Scotland
28 Leicester, UK
29 Leicester, UK

December 1980
01 London, Wembley Arena, UK
02 London, Wembley Arena, UK
03 London, Wembley Arena, UK
05 London, Wembley Arena, UK
06 London, Wembley Arena, UK
07 London, Wembley Arena, UK
09 Manchester, UK
10 Manchester, UK
11 Manchester, UK
13 Birmingham, UK
14 Birmingham, UK
16 Brighton, UK
17 Brighton, UK

30 January 1981
Sacking day! Rod sacks band members Gary Grainger, Phil Chen and Kevin Savigar after they refuse to fly from London to L.A. to appear on the American Music Awards with him.

October 1980
11 Stockholm, Sweden
12 Köbenhavn, Denmark
13 Göteborg, Sweden
16 Paris, France
17 Lyon, France
19 Köln, Germany
21 Hamburg, Germany
22 Hamburg, Germany
23 Berlin, Germany
25 Linz, Austria
26 München, Germany
28 Frankfurt, Germany
29 Frankfurt, Germany
30 Bremen, Germany

April - May 1981
Rod Stewart tours Japan, Hongkong and Bangkok with a new band line up, including members Robin Le Mesurier, Danny Johnson, Jimmy Zavala and Jay Davis. Jim Cregan and Carmine Appice are kept from the old line up and Kevin Savigar rejoins after patching things up with Rod.

"Harry The Hook" and "The Somerset Segovia" engaging in Foolish Behaviour....

If the ska and soul revival that recently stirred up the British recording business enough to be tipped as new music for the eighties sounded old hat to Phil Chen, that's because he was playing them both first time around as guitarist with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds back in the sixties, after he'd quit Kingston, Jamaica, for London's thriving scene.

By 1970 he was playing bass and ready to abandon the Vagabonds for studio work, a move that reflected his realisation that the band, unlike their well-remembered contemporary in the clubs, Geno Washington, had failed to transfer the infectious vigour of ther live work to record.

Carmine Appice has been laying down the beat behind the Rod Stewart Group since Rod put the band together in 1976, but he would've been with him seven years before, had an intended merger actually occurred between Carmine and bassist Tim Bogert of the Amercian Vanilla Fudge and Rod and his boss in the Jeff Beck Group. But Beck rowed himself out of the arrangement via a car crash and Rod followed Beck's bass player, Ron Wood, to the Faces. So Carmine and Bogert formed Cactus instead.

A native New Yorker, Carmine served his musical apprenticeship in bar misvah bands before joining the Penguins.

Revamped as Vanilla Fudge, they specialised in slow-motion versions of rock classics like 'Eleanor Rigby' (allegedly approved by the Beatles themselves) and were best-known for their dramatic reworking of the Supremes 'You Keep Me Hangin' On', which was a hit both sides of the pond and resurfaced on Rod's 'Foot Loose & Fancy Free' after Carmine jogged his memory. Although he had to wait a while to team up with Rod, part of that earlier abortive association took place in 1972, when Beck, Bogert & Appice was born. KGB followed stormily before his call-up for the Rod Stewart Group - and that almost didn't happen, because according to Rod, "it was such an obvious choice, I didn't realise it".

One of the world's most accomplished technicians, Carmine also belies the notion that rock drummers have nothing to give but the beat. " I studied theory and harmony in school", he points out, "and I've been singing for years and years, so I like to do vocals and help arrange harmonies - I like to be involved". Nor is he one to keep his skills with his sticks a secret, spending much of the short time that's left spare from recording and touring, playing drum doctor with his travelling Ludwig clinic.

Gary Grainger's career in rock'n'roll makes quick reading.
1971-75: guitarist with Strider.
1975 (June - September): guitarist with Strapps.
1975-76: banana salesman.
1976-: guitarist with the Rod Stewart Group.... Banana salesman?
Well, if a rock'n'roll recession had him briefly flogging Fyffes instead of knocking out riffs, it clearly didn't do him any lasting harm, because since being recruited to Rod's group, Gary's been much more than just the gun-powder in the barrel of the band (a part Rod knew he could play), he's also been Rod's most prolific songwriting partner (a role Gary couldn't have counted on).

There are more reasons for records reaching No 1 than just the singer and the song. Occasionally a few inspired instrumental moments in the middle will transform an entire performance and turn a good song into a great single.

Jim Cregan's stunning acoustic guitar break on Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel's 'Make Me Smile' did exactly that in 1975, although ist benefits for Harley were short-lived, because the following year Rod pinched him for his own band. Before Cockney Rebel, Jim had added as sweet and sure a touch as any English virtuoso's since rock'n'roll began to a succession of groups that seemed somehow to sell themselves (and him) short.

Blossom Toes and Stud both failed to fulfill his faith in them, while the inventive Family - as much by their dogmatic refusal to follow any other direction than their own often eccentric one - had all but denied themselves the very highest peaks of popularity even before he joined in 1972.

Rod already had more than the bones of a band when he saw him on stage with Cockney Rebel in L.A, and though he jokes that he was impressed as much by Jim's way with a bottle as his skill with his instrument, he's quick to admit his value to the group right from the off. A master of electric and acoustic guitar, a source of sound ideas in the studio and unstinting energy on stage, he's also composed some of the most irrestible melodies on Rod's recent albums.

When Kevin Savigar got the nod in the summer of 1978, the Rod Stewart Group had already been together for two years. "It was difficult to come in as a new boy", he admits, "and it took a little while to break through. I was a bit uneasy at first, but it worked out - after a couple of months it was fine".

Those first days would've been a testing time for a musicianwith a dozen bands behind him, but for a newcomer like Kevin it could've been more Bermuda Triangle than mere deep end.

Though not entirely wet behind the ears, he'd only been out of music school (London's Trinity College of Music, where he'd studied classical piano) for two years, and his practical playing experience since graduation had been confined to pit bands in West End theatres, sessions for TV jingles, and short stays with what Kevin calls "blue denim bands".

The last long wourld tour was a hard honeymoon, but it proved the relationship with Rod and the rest of the group would work, and in the studio since then he's created a more dominant role for keyboards than they'd had lately on Rod's recordings. Whe he first stepped on stage with Rod, his face was almost as pale with fright as the paint job on his white piano. "I'd never been in a band where there's so much presentation on stage", he says. "In fact, I'd like to rephrase that - I'd never been in a band"! That piano is no longer white and Kevin's looking healthy.
M