Okay, so I’ve never been much of a Rod Stewart fan, I do admit it. Even his supposedly legendary stuff with the Faces was kind of, ummm, meh for me. As for the Disco Rod era…well, the less said about that, the better. “Maggie May,” “Hot Legs,” “You Wear It Well” I like, maybe a couple others. The rest of it, not so much, frankly.
But after tonight, Rod Stewart is a-okay with me.
See, there’s a local FM radio station, 95.7 (The Ride), which on Saturday nights plays recent “Live In Concert” recordings by two, sometimes three artists. It’s almost always a good listen, even when I don’t really care for the band or artist in question. So it was with this evening’s broadcast, featuring Rod Stewart as the “headline” performer. Not so much for the music itself, as for the between-songs patter.
First, Stewart brought his old Faces PiMC (Partner in Musical Crime), grizzled guitarist Ron Wood—now sharing guitarslinging duties with Keith Richards as a Rolling Stone—to the center-stage mic to be introduced to the howling throng. This tour was by way of being Old Home Week for the pair, reuniting them after many years of not playing together.
So Wood makes a crack about his and Stewart’s famously-oversized schnozzes, to which Stewart shot back brilliantly: “Yeah, you’ll notice tonight that we always stay on opposite sides of the stage from each other. That’s because when we stand back to back, we look like a pickaxe.”
Love Stewart or hate him, that’s pretty dang funny right there. But wait, it gets better still.
A few tunes later on, Rod’s stage patter went as follows:
“I’d like to dedicate this next song to our wonderful military personnel all over the world. Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere else: whether you think they should be there or not, they’re out there fighting for all of us, risking everything for us and for our freedom. God bless them all!”
I was gobsmacked. Also highly, highly impressed. IMNSHO, Rod Stewart expressed it about as perfectly as anyone possibly could have, without the sentiment either coming across as mindlessly jingoistic, condescending, or in any way just an obsequious pander to Mark-1 Mod-0 shitlib pseudo-peacenick pacifism, with which his concert audience just about had to be packed to the rafters.
A welcome change from the obnoxious Leftist sermonizing we’ve come to expect from entertainers these days, rock stars especially. Perhaps I’m full of shit, perhaps not, but the feeling I got from his words was sincere and heartfelt gratitude, and I gained a new respect for Rod Stewart as a result. So hats off to the man, I say. I still ain’t crazy about most of his musical output, but from here on out Rod’s all right as far as I’m concerned.
No Tune Damage embed, though; I got big plans for that later on, or mebbe tomorrow, we’ll see.
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Rod Stewart has also built a really amazing HO scale train layout set in 1940s America. Apparently he’s done most of the work himself, which is admirable and impressive to us train dorks.
Really, no shit? That’s incredibly cool, I must say. Not a train dork myself, but my cousin Steve is, has been since a VERY early age. Just another point in the Rod’s All Right column, I think. 😉
“I was gobsmacked.”
Well, I’m right there with you. A nice surprise.
I’ve seen Rod Stewart in Vegas twice, and both have been great shows. Once, he did a very heartfelt tribute to his dad, a rock ribbed Brit from the WWII generation. On another night, he said that the Faces were “the most consistent band I ever played with. We might have been good on some nights and bad on others, but we were always drunk!” The man is articulate, witty, talented, and entertaining.
I’m a bigger fan of Rod than you, especially his late 60s to late 70s output. That being said, I’m kinda surprised at the eloquence of what he said. A proper middle of the road non-woke stance if there ever was one from a “Rock Star”.
As for sense of humor, I always thought Rod and the boys in the Faces never took themselves too serious like other Rock Stars did.
By the way, what was the song he played after dedicating it to the troops?
Honestly, Kenny, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. My mind was so completely blown I was laughing, clapping, and bouncing around in my seat, then immediately dialed up my brother to tell him all about what I’d just heard. I didn’t really hear any of the song beyond the first few bars of the intro, which I might not’ve recognized anyhow.
The Live In Concert shows are archived on the station’s website, I gotta go back and listen to it again sometime—that one, and a whole crapton of other episodes I’ve either missed or just want to hear again.