Rod Stewart rocked out Riverbend
Concert review
By Chris Varias • Enquirer contributor • August 9, 2008
You may have wondered how much rock Rod Stewart had left in him. For the last five or six years he has been getting deeper into his great-American-songbook routine, and now that he’s 63 there would be no shame in trading in “Hot Legs” for “Stardust” and his electric-rooster hairdo for a fedora.
But the man who asks the musical question, “Do you think I’m sexy?” probably isn’t the shameful type, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Rod – if not Rod the Mod – was back at Riverbend Friday, strutting around as if it were 1971, when he was king.
He went back to that year for the best two moments of the hour-and-40-minute, 20-song show. One was “Maggie Mae,” his breakthrough solo hit, which closed out the set. “Stay With Me,” his biggest American hit as a member of the Faces, was the most rocking moment of the show.
For that one, he pared down his large ensemble, which was heavy on the pretty ladies: three female back-up singers and three female multi-instrumentalists augmenting a five-man band.
The stage set was stark white: white instruments against a backdrop of white curtains. It provided a canvas for the lighting. Everything was washed in deep blue during “The First Cut is the Deepest” for a cool effect. It proved you can scale back production at the big outdoor shows without losing visual impact.
It really was up to Stewart to give the crowd something to look at. He did weird dance moves. He kicked soccer balls into the crowd. He went up and down the front of the stage shaking hands. He changed outfits a couple times, once during the unlikely moment of a drum solo in “Downtown Train,” a very un-drum-solo kind of song.
Stewart was just as entertaining talking to the crowd. He kept the patter topical. He thanked the crowd for spending money on him during a recession. Introducing his classic “You Wear It Well,” he made mention of a Faces bandmate and current Rolling Stone who recently has been in the news. “This is a song I wrote with my friend Ronnie Wood, who’s battling the booze right now, bless him,” he said. Hopefully Wood dries out for a possible Faces reunion in 2009, which Stewart mentioned to the crowd.
Turning to the rock ‘n’ roll era instead of looking back to Gershwin, Stewart added to his live repertoire. He mixed in Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” with a few of his longtime favorite covers, including Sam Cooke’s “Having a Party” and Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately.”
The concert also featured singer Bryan Adams as opening act, making it perhaps the raspiest double bill of all time. The show drew a big crowd – short of a sellout – who got not only Stewart and 50 minutes of heartland rock and Lite-FM balladry from Adams, but intermission entertainment from the Cincinnati Caledonian Pipes and Drums Band. The bagpipe and drum corps performed in an aisle of the pavilion, providing a nice prelude that the headlining Englishman with proud Scottish roots had to appreciate.
Reproduced with thanks to Chris Varias,Ben Boggess and The Cincinnati Enquirer