Stewart a fun-loving showman
Singer shows he’s quite the ham in Bell Centre show
T’CHA DUNLEVY, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, August 14
It’s a smart idea, really. Older artists and bands still out and touring often get bound to their early-career repertoire, making new songs an unwanted distraction from the nostalgic love-in fans pay for.
But what if those new songs were old songs? Rod Stewart has experienced a resurgence over the past six years with a series of successful covers albums. First there was The Great American Songbook, Vols. 1 through 4. The most recent is 2006’s Still the Same … Great Rock Classics of Our Time.
He mixed hits by others with hits of his own last night in a feel-good concert before 11,300 fans at the Bell Centre. The resulting performance was one that suits Stewart’s personality – that of a fun-loving showman, more eager to please the crowd than prove his continued musical relevance.
Opening with his early-’80s smash Some Guys Have All the Luck, he strutted out in a silver dinner jacket. The staging was big, clean and open-concept. Long, silver curtains lined the back wall, with a giant screen dead-centre catching his every smirk, wink and shuffle.
Backed by a gender-balanced 12-piece band, including a female sax player, violinist and keyboardist, and three Supremes-styled backup singers (called “the Lap Tops – a combination of ‘lap dancers’ and the Four Tops,” he explained), he led the proceedings with a casual confidence and knowing charm.
Stewart is quite the ham. He played to his audience throughout the evening, mixing it up with a combination of covers and originals. Bonnie Tyler’s It’s a Heartache and Cat Stevens’s The First Cut Is the Deepest were followed by his own classics Forever Young and You Wear it Well.
Having a Party and Downtown Train then led to the second Stevens song of the night, Father and Son. A video montage of footage of Stewart and his three sons, and photos of him and his dad filled the screen.
People lapped it all up, prompting him to gush, “What an audience we’ve got tonight – genius,” early on. “It’s going to get hot tonight,” he offered soon after, taking off his jacket to reveal a white pilot’s shirt and loosened black tie. He eventually traded these in for a burnt-orange shirt, with this quip: “I’m a very happy man; I just wish I didn’t sweat so much.”
And the hits kept coming.
His 1977 single You’re In My Heart gave way to the ’60s classic On Broadway, updated with funky wah-wah guitar – perhaps in tribute to recently deceased soul icon Isaac Hayes.
Have You Ever Seen the Rain? was a standout, prompting a boisterous singalong. But that was nothing compared to the set-closing romp Maggie May, of which the crowd sung the entire first verse – and every word, really, standing and clapping for the duration.
“I do admire your taste in music,” he complimented the cheering audience, as he returned for Do Ya Think I’m Sexy in the encore – proving that, while other people’s hits provide welcome filler, Stewart’s got plenty of his own.
Reproduced with thanks to T’Cha Dunlevy/The Gazette
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© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008