This week’s news and gossip

Main Photo by Marc Baulisch-Steines

Nokia Arena, Tampere, Finland

Last week ended with a Friday night party in Finland and here are some great photos and a review from Veikka Putkisaari

Rod Stewart served up a breathtaking selection of legendary songs. At the same time, he showed that he is still in as good a shape as he was on his last visit to Finland in 1998. The concert got off to a lively start with the song Infatuation. The curtain went up and the audience in the Nokia Arena rose respectfully. The audience was then treated to a series of 80s hits as Tonight I’m Yours (Don’t Hurt Me), Some Guys Have All the Luck and This Old Heart of Mine followed each other and took over the arena. Throughout the concert, the audience was fuelled by Rod’s lively remarks, such as: “Enjoy yourselves, we’re going to play the best songs all night! Have fun, guys, have fun!” When ‘Young Turks’ ended and Rod launched into his biggest hit ‘Maggie May’, even the usually reserved Finns stood up and sang along.

The Finns are not known abroad for being loud or overly enthusiastic. But at prime time on Friday evening, there was a goosebump atmosphere in the Nokia Arena. Even before the show, people arrived early at the venue to eat, drink, socialise and buy Rod merchandise. Many fans were beaming with excitement, and there was a surprisingly wide age range in the audience – from babies to grandaddies.

One of the biggest cheers of the concert came during the tender yet raw legendary rendition of I’d Rather Go Blind. Whistles and shouts from the audience complemented the emotional atmosphere of the song perfectly. Celtic FC’s chances of winning the Scottish Championship were also reflected in the setlist. While the backing singers performed a cover of I’m So Excited (by The Pointer Sisters), Rod donned a yellow suit and dedicated the next song to his favourite club: Celtic, United – You’re In My Heart (The Final Acclaim). While Rod sang, highlights of the best Celtic games were shown on the background screens.

The heartfelt moments continued as the yellow-clad Rod treated the Tampere crowd to If You Don’t Know Me By Now from his Soulbook album. The touching song mesmerised everyone in the arena.

As the concert progressed, one hit followed the next. Rod changed his outfit once again and gave a spectacular performance of one of his biggest hits from the 80s: Baby Jane. Footballs were then brought on stage, and lucky fans who caught one were in for a treat when Stewart got the whole hall dancing with Da Ya Think I’m Sexy. At the same time, Rod Stewart gave excited fans in the front rows a high-five and even hugged a lady in a blue dress on the left side of the stage.

After the disco dance, it was time to slow down as Stewart, now wearing a sailor’s cap, performed one of his most legendary songs: Sailing. Flashbulbs lit up throughout the Nokia Arena, and even a few eyes glistened with tears. Afterwards, the curtain fell, but the audience’s applause was unbroken. Stewart and his band returned to the stage once more, in true Faces style, and played Stay With Me. The audience danced, cheered, screamed and enjoyed themselves wholeheartedly.

The curtain closed and the lights came on. The concert was over, but the magical atmosphere lasted for a very long time!

​And a review from Martin Heidt

For Sir Rod Stewart, it was only the third concert in Finland in his long career and the first in over 27 years. The Brit had previously performed in Helsinki in 1976 and 1998.

In the packed Nokia Arena, the singer showed that even at an advanced age, he is still the best guarantee for great hits and the best music entertainment. The 80-year-old entered the arena stage at 8pm sharp in a good mood, with the audience eagerly awaiting the start of the show.

And Rod really got going, belting out four songs to the fans right at the start that got even the very last dance-averse in the audience off their seats: Infatuation, Tonight I’m Yours, Some Guys and This Old Heart Of Mine – Sir Rod didn’t allow himself or the audience a single moment to catch their breath.

But the Brit knew that his fans also love his sensitive ballads, so he added the two 1970s classics The First Cut is The Deepest and Tonight’s The Night. The fans indulged in old, decades-old memories, couples cuddled in thoughts of times long gone, others sang along to the songs at the top of their voices. ​With his anthem Forever Young, the still forbiddingly fit 80-year-old Stewart always strikes a chord with his fans, many of whom are not much younger than he is, and yes, Sir Rod has a certain ‘forever young’ quality when he rocks the stage to Young Turks, warbles down his starter song Maggie May and then immediately follows it with You Wear It Well. Blessed is he who can play his greatest hits exclusively to his audience for two hours.

With the Etta James cover I’d Rather Go Blind, Stewart rang in the second, somewhat more contemplative phase of the evening, only to leave the stage for a few minutes after Downtown Train and change clothes.
​He returned with You’re in My Heart and I Don’t Want To Talk About It and the audience were tested on their ability to sing along to the lyrics. The Brit also proved that he is the master of cover songs with If You Don’t Know Me By Now, which Simply Red turned into a number one hit at the end of the 1980s and which Rod released on his album Soulbook in 2009.

After another short break backstage and the next change of clothes, Rod then fired up the crowd in the arena once again for the finale. With his foot on the gas, he presented his Baby Jane and the disco anthem Da Ya Think I’m Sex, before Sailing lit up the arena once again with numerous lighters.

As in Kaunas, Stewart returned once again with the Faces smasher Stay With Me before the stage curtain finally came down to mark the end of a magnificent evening.

The Finnish news magazine raved: ‘One Last Time: A living legend bids farewell to his Finns’. There is hardly anything more to add.

Setlist:

Infatuation
Tonight I’m Yours
Some Guys Have All The Luck
This Old Heart Of Mine
The First Cut Is The Deepest
Tonight’s The Night
Forever Young
Young Turks
Maggie May
You Wear It Well
I’d Rather Go Blind
Downtown Train
I’m So Excited (Band only)
You’re In My Heart
I Don’t Want To Talk About It
If You Don’t Know Me By Now
Proud Mary b(Band only)
Baby Jane
Da Ya Think I’m Sexy
Sailing
Stay With Me (Encore)

Marisol Gementiza Usva was at the show there were no Wolfie’s Rod cut outs on show but she found the next best thing​..

Oslo Spektrum Arena Norway

Sunday saw the tour hit Norway and SMILER photographer Marc Baulisch-Steines was at the show to bring us some superb exclusive photos

Kjell Magnussen was at the show attending his 60th Rod concert ..his first was Oslo in 1976 and he still has his scarf from that gig

Here is a review of the night by Martin Heidt

UTSOLGT – sold out, the organiser announced two days before the show started. The Oslo Spektrum Arena was bursting at the seams when Sir Rod Stewart took to the stage on Sunday and opened his third European concert of the year with the song Infatuation.
The Spektrum was opened in 1991 and seats 10,500 people at concerts. And they all turned up, eagerly anticipating a two-hour journey through Stewart’s musical history.
And Sir Rod delivered. The evening took shape with the 80s hits Tonight I’m Yours and Some Guys Have All The Luck and the 1989 version of This Old Heart Of Mine. With Tonight’s The Night and The First Cut Is The Deepest, Stewart took the audience back to the golden 70s for the first time that evening. With Forever Young, the violin and violin section of the Stewart band around J’Anna Jacoby really set the pace with a rousing solo, which Rod used for a first quick costume change and then continued just as quickly with his Young Turks.

​The fans were thrilled with the performance. Chewy Schaal, who was at the concert with his wife, wrote: “Unbelievable, Rod Stewart! 80 years and still pure action on stage!” The couple swayed and sang along with fervour. You Wear It Well, Maggie May – these songs leave no one cold at a Rod Stewart concert.

Jacquelyne Ruud took plenty of souvenir photos and posted a few videos on her social media channels. ‘It was just fantastic,’ she wrote, adding lots of red hearts to her comment.

And the enthusiasm of the audience was reflected on stage: ‘A very nice, enthusiastic audience,’ Rod then praised, found a few words of praise about the city of Oslo and its cleanliness and continued his programme with another great version of I’d Rather Go Blind. Hardly anyone in the audience took it amiss that he missed the cue and had to start the song a second time.

After Downtown Train, Sir Rod disappeared backstage once again and the band took over for a strong version of the Pointer Sister classic I’m So Excited.

Stewart returned in a red suit and yellow shirt and let the audience reminisce (and sing along to the lyrics) with I Don’t Want To Talk About It and followed it up with the Simply Red hit If You Don’t Know Me by Now. Everyone in the arena agreed that Rod turns every song into a Stewart song, no matter who wrote it. ‘I’m playing Glastonbury Festival this summer and everything we’re playing today is a run-through of what we’ll be playing there,’ Stewart told the crowd.

​After another short intermezzo by the band – Proud Mary – the final third of the evening began at full throttle. With Baby Jane, the Brit really cranked up the tempo again. During Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, the obligatory signed footballs flew into the audience and Rod got up close and personal with his fans, shook hands and had his photo taken at close quarters.
Then things got emotional once again. During Sailing, an oversized Norwegian flag appeared on the sceen above the stage, people hugged each other, lighters lit up and many sang along. Everyone in the arena agreed: this song is and always will be one of the greatest anthems in music history.

To round off the evening, Rod and the band turned up the heat once again – with the Faces classic Stay With Me and Rod’s Hot Legs (Sweet Little Rock’n’Roller had originally been on the setlist), the two hours came to an end – far too quickly for many fans in the arena.

1. Infatuation

2. Tonight I’m Yours

3. Some Guys Have All The Luck

4. This Old Heart Of Mine

5. The First Cut Is The Deepest

6. Tonight’s The Night

7. Forever Young

8. Young Turks

9. You Wear It Well

10. Maggie May

11. I’d Rather Go Blind

12. Downtown Train

13. I’m Every Women

14. I Don’t Want To Talk About It.

15. If You Don’t Know Me By Now

16. Proud Mary

17. Baby Jane

18. Da Ya Think I’m Sexy

19. Sailing

Encore:

20. Stay With Me

21. Hot Legs

London Marathon

While Rod was working away in Finland, Penny was working at home but it still looks fun at The London Marathon on Sunday

Malmö Arena Sweden

On Tuesday it was Sweden’s turn to party, And Penny was back on the tour

Susanne Berglund Krantz had the perfect pre show drink!

SMILER photographer Marc Baulisch-Steines was at the show to bring us more fantastic exclusive shots

And here is the review from Martin Heidt

Let’s call it never change a working setlist, based on a saying from the world of sport. Sir Rod Stewart also remembered this motto at his One Last Time Tour concert in Malmö on Tuesday.
The singer only made minor adjustments to the song list for last night’s show compared to the performance in Tampere. The Faces song Ooh La La came in, This Old Heart of Mine had to ‘take a seat on the substitutes’ bench’. And Lady Marmelade replaced the Pointer Sisters hit I’m So Excited among the ‘interval fillers’.

Around 15,000 visitors were looking forward to an unforgettable evening, which kicked off with the Depeche Mode classic (and Celtic Stadium song) and a bagpipe intro by Scotland The Brave.

The curtain then rose to the sounds of Infatuation and ‘the good times could roll’. Tonight I’m Yours, Some Guys Have All The Luck – the audience in Sweden’s third largest city after Stockholm and Gothenburg quickly warmed up and the party picked up speed.
‘An emotional ’The first cut is the deepest‘ is one of the highlights of the evening,’ noted the Swedish online news portal Sydsvenska, drawing a somewhat macabre comparison. ‘When Elvis was this age, he had already been dead for 38 years,’ commented the paper. ‘Rod Stewart still has this unique vitality at the age of 80.’

Well, very few visitors to the show in Malmö were probably thinking along these lines, enjoying the evening first and foremost and experiencing a man on stage who didn’t always hit the right note, but this is probably not entirely unknown to long-time Rod Stewart fans. The Celtic fan ironed out these little slip-ups with his energy, his tongue-in-cheek humour (‘I fucked it up…’) and his unbelievable stage presence, also repeatedly in interaction with his excellent musicians.

In general, one of the greatest music legends of the last few decades simply celebrated a big party here, which would be very fitting for the motto Forever Young.

I’d Rather Go Blind once again became the secret star of the evening, with Rod performing the Etta James song with such emotion that ‘you could hear every sigh and every note’, according to Sydsvenska.
At the end, he aptly summarised: ‘The last cut is sometimes the deepest’, which is probably how the 15,000 people felt when the curtain fell for the last time after the two encores Stay With Me and Hot Legs and they realised that a music legend had just left the Land of the Three Crowns at that moment.

Setlist:

1 Infatuation

2 Tonight I’m Yours

3 Some Guys Have All The Luck

4 You Wear It Well

5 Ooh La La

6 Baby Jane

7. the first cut is the deepest

8 Tonight’s The Night

9 Forever Young

10 Young Turks

11 Maggie May

12 I’d Rather Go Blind

13 Lady Marmalade (Band only)

14 I Don’t Want To Talk About It

15 If You Don’t Know Me By Now

16 Proud Mary (Band only)

17 Da Ya Think I’m Sexy

18 Sailing

19 Stay With Me

20 Hot Legs

On Wednesday Rod and Penny were pictured by figure of world’s tallest man outside Guinness World of Records museum in Stroget street, Copenhagen, Denmark

R.I.P. Annie Challis

Everyone at SMILER was saddened to hear that Rod’s ex managerial assistant Annie Challis has passed away.

We would like to pass on our condolences to Rod and everyone else who knew Annie.

Annie was born in England, and started her working life at Capital Radio in London as an on-air personality and producer. she moved to Beverly Hills and became President of prominent personal management company Stiefel Entertainment, looking after the day to day careers or many recording artists including Sir Rod.

Jo Wood led the tributes to Annie posting the photo below withe message May you rest in peace @anniechallis was lovely to know you .

We last spoke with Annie in October 2021 when she was going to do a SMILER review from one of Rod’s Vegas shows, I asked if she remembered us to which she replied  “Yes, or course I remember, how could I forget Smiler!”. Unfortunately at the last minute she had to go to Rancho Palos Verdes and never got to do the review, Annie was always helpful to us in her days working with Rod providing news, tour dates and concert tickets for our members to buy.

Rod on TV

Now 80’s will be showing Rod Stewart In The 80’s on Tuesday 29th April 1am-1.40am

7 big raspy Rod anthems, from ‘Tonight I’m Yours’ in 1981 to ‘Downtown Train’ right at the end of 1989

And on Monday 5th May at 11:25 AM U&Eden  are showing Parkinson with Rod Stewart, Maureen Lipman and Tamzin Outhwaite

Louise Palanker

During the 80s and 90s, Louise conducted thousands of celebrity interviews for KIIS FM and Premiere Radio.

Louise has a million memories from her interviews, here she tells us her memory of Rod…

It features young me and the already well legendary Rod Steward at Rick Dees’ studio in Hollywood. Many of us are burdened by speech irregularities. Mine is a propensity to insert the non-word “um” where a wise or thoughtful question or insight should go.
So, mid-interview, my guest smirked at me intently, leaned in, and said, “Uuuuuuuuuhhhm!” I waited for him to complete his thought before fully appreciating that he was mocking me! My eventual response went something like, “Yeah, um, I need to work on that, Rod…”
And thank you, Rod Stewart. It was helpful to have it pointed out—even if my face did turn the cclour of his jacket.

Sunday Lunch

The latest [And possibly best ever] edition of the fantastic series of Sunday Lunch videos by Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp features Rod’s 1978 disco classic Do You Think I’m Sexy?

As you might expect, the couple make full use of the opportunity as Robert sings vocal on the chorus and Toyah responds by inviting her the King Crimson leader to “come up to the bedroom now, honey” where, she says, “It’s hot in the kitchen today,” Robert responds letting out an exaggerated breath to settle his nerves, “…for Toyah and Robert’s SEXY Sunday Lunch!”

And we even get to see some sexy guest stars who make at appearance at the end.

Rod pays for child’s autism diagnosis

The Daily Record revealed that Rod and his team would work to find a private specialist in London or in Scotland to provide a diagnosis and he would cover the costs for Iain Gregori aged 4 who has waited three years for a diagnosis, despite his father Michael being told repeatedly he is autistic.

The Scottish Government were told it should “hang its head in shame” as the case was raised by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday.

“Three years on, Iain is still non-verbal and is still waiting on a diagnosis,” Sarwar said.

“Michael was a member of the SNP and campaigned for them to be in Government.

“He told me that they should now hang their heads in shame, as they have let Scotland down.

“Rod Stewart heard this heartbreaking story and stepped in to pay for Iain’s diagnosis.

“Others won’t be as lucky – why, on John Swinney’s watch, do young people have to rely on the charity of a rock star to get the treatment they need?”

A chance to see Rod The Mod documentary

Rod’s most significant sixties television appearance was a 30-minute documentary titled ‘An Easter With Rod’ (otherwise known as ‘Rod The Mod’), produced by Francis Megahy and Fred Burnley. This was sold as “a portrait of a typical mod” and screened in November 1965.

fans are offered a rare chance to see the full version on 7th June at Midland Art Centre

And finally..

Watch out for this guy who is the latest of hundreds of scammers out there using Rod’s name to try and scam you

The photo is in fact the boyfriend of Joanne from Rod’s band who obviously has nothing to do with this scam. they are also sending messages under the name of Jake Williams to fans saying Good day to you. I’m Jake Williams from Rod Stewart media team. We are currently conducting a fan base survey of some of his active followers. You have been selected as one of the very few participants.

We hope you don’t mind taking a few minutes to complete our survey. Your responses will help us to better understand Sir Rod Stewart fan base and how we can better serve his fans

You have been warned!!

On a lighter note anyone going to Rod’s show on tomorrow in Westfalenhalle, Rheinlanddamm 200, Dortmund, Germany ,ÖVB-Arena, Bürgerweide, Bremen, Germany on Sunday, ERGO ARENA, Plac Dwóch Miast 1 Sopot, Poland on Tuesday or Tauron Arena Krakow, Stanisława Lema 7, Kraków, Poland on Thursday have a great time and please send in any thoughts and pictures from the night

See you next week