HAVING A PARTY
Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sir Rod Stewart sings Infatuation, his opening number, at Thursday night’s concert at Prospera Place in Kelowna. The 73-yearold performed the entire concert with his foot in a cast.
73-year-old rocker rolls out hit after hit from career spanning almost 50 years at Kelowna concert
Abroken foot didn’t stop Rod Stewart from delivering a Vegasstyle review and evening of greatest hits Thursday at Prospera Place.
Stewart and his entourage of 12 musicians — six women and six men — delivered one hour and 45 minutes of high energy, laughs and nostalgia to a nearly soldout crowd in Kelowna.
Before the first note of music, the 73-yearold walked on stage and explained his large foot cast. He said it was the result of playing soccer with his two young sons.
“One of them broke my foot,” he said. “But, my voice still sounds good.”
The foot cast was distracting at times, and he sat for many of the songs, spinning in an office chair. He danced on one leg and shuffled from side to side of the stage, but nobody seemed to mind.
Starting with two surprise numbers — Infatuation and Robert Palmer’s Some Guys Have All the Luck, both from 1984’s Camouflage, with Sam Cooke’s Having a Party tossed in between — much of the set list was devoted to his more recent hits (from the 1990s).
Stewart got political twice during the show, introducing The Killing of Georgie as the song the BBC banned in 1975 because it used the word “gay.”
“And we went back six or so weeks ago to the BBC to perform and they still wouldn’t allow us to play it,” he said. “Can you . . . believe it? This is 2018.”
He also spoke about troubled times in the United States, without being specific, digging deep into his catalogue and playing Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready, which Stewart recorded in 1985 with Jeff Beck.
The first of five standing ovations came Having a Party, four songs in when, as a tribute to soldiers, he played Rhythm of My Heart, a top-five single from Vagabond Heart co-written by Canadian songwriter Marc Jordan.
During that song, the video screen showed a brief clip of his recent knighting by Prince William.
There was a lengthy play-out of Forever Young before, halfway through the show, he let loose on his signature song, Maggie May, rather than holding it for the encore.
He slyly mentioned that Maggie was recorded in the same year his wife was born. Quick, do the math.
Instead of an intermission, there were several long instrumentals, which allowed the boss to rest. He even turned the stage over to the ensemble for a kick-ass version of Ike and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits. It was an appropriate choice considering Rod helped orchestrate Tina’s incredible comeback when he hired her to open for him in the early 1980s when her career stalled.
Stewart definitely sounds best when he sings ballads — Reason to Believe, Have I Told You Lately, You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim). But, he can rock. He saved his most raucous tune until second to last — Stay With Me, an old Faces number and one of the nastiest rock songs in history. (“Just don’t be there in the morning when I wake up.”)
The song showcased the instrumentals
(the definitive version with Tina Turner and Kim Carnes can be found on his 1982 Absolutely Live) as Rod threw soccer balls into the audience. (He kicked the odd one with his unbroken foot.)
Then, to close, it was a trip back to the late ’70s with Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, with hundreds of balloons falling from the ceiling and impressive disco lighting.
Stewart is touring in support of Blood Red Roses, his 30th studio album. He played only one cut from the album, Didn’t I, told from the perspective of a father concerned about his child overdosing on drugs.
While Stewart has been able to stay on the charts for nearly 50 years by changing with the times, his Vegas-style shows have remained basically the same for decades. I saw Stewart in 1984 at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.
Except for a smaller venue, a few more wrinkles and (I guess) Botox treatments, nothing has really changed.