On Friday night Janis and my buddy Buzzard and I went to the Rod Stewart concert at Rogers Place here in Edmonton. This was my second time seeing Rod in concert, the first time being in 1991. That first time my buddy Geddy and I spent more time running for beers through out the show whenever there was a song we didn't like being performed. Well this time was a bit different as I respect Rod Stewart that much more, but there were still plenty of times where I did go run for a way over priced beer.
I was kind of hoping this time Rod would play more of his old stuff, tunes from The Faces and from classic albums like Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells A Story. But sadly only one song got played from either album and that was "Maggie May" from the Picture album, the last song before the encore.
The show started with a what looked like a big old checkerboard shower curtain around the stage. The first song of the night was "Infatuation" which got the 14,000 people (my guess) up and singing and dancing. That was followed by the song "Young Turks" from his hugely popular 1981 album Tonight I'm Yours. Rod's voice sounded a little rough, not that he has always had the best voice but at least you knew it was him singing and not some piped in vocals. Rod did mention how dry it was here and it was messing with his and his female backup singers voices. Rod seemed in good spirits though saying how much he loved a Friday night show, and saying he would be playing for an hour and forty-five minutes in which he did. And with no opening act, this show was done before 9:30 which seemed pretty lame for a Friday night show, but I guess at the age of 73 and still looking good, Rod may be a little old for late nights now.
Other songs that he played were "Ooh La La" a Faces song, that was good, as well as "Tonight the Night", "Forever Young", "Downtown Train" a song that Tom Waits actually wrote. My favorite tune of the night was the Muddy Waters song he did "Rollin' And Tumblin'", he sounded great singing this gritty blues song as his voice really seems to work with this type of rock n' roll, it's more along the lines of his Gasoline Alley songs.
For the encore he played "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?", I was really hoping he wouldn't play that song, but I guess I knew it was coming with it being one of his biggest hits. What was weird though was for the last three songs the big curtain or shower curtain whatever you wanna call it would come down, then go back up and they would do another song, and then finally it never went back up, show done, over. No good night, no bow, nothing, all over, seemed like a weird way to end a concert. And especially when it's not even 9:30 on a Friday. All and all the show was a bit schmaltzy but still a fun night out. Good times!!!
Rod Stewart at Rogers Place.
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