Rockin' Rod brings out the best in Arena
One part Peter Pan, one part Pete Best and pretty much the coolest 70-year-old on the touring circuit hosted a party at Perth Arena on Saturday night.
Rod Stewart and his remarkable plumage of blonde hair kicked off the Australian leg of his The Hits. tour in front of a sold-out crowd of more than 13,000 fans.
The Maggie May and Young Turks singer, named the 17th most successful artist of all-time by US Billboard magazine, played Perth three years ago.
This time Stewart arrived a month after winding up a Las Vegas residency at Caesar’s Palace, so he should've been in tip-top condition to deliver a greatest hits show.
However, despite looking fit as a celtic fiddle, Rod the Vegas Mod's vocals were frequently lost amongst his big band's bombastic performances.
The fans didn't mind, singing along with Saturday night gusto to every song and cheering their hero's every gag and gyration.
In fact, the full house sounded as good as any crowd has in the arena.
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Hitting the stage in a white sportscoat and setting a breezy tone with Sam Cooke’s Having a Party, Stewart's concert nonetheless delivered what it said on the tin – The Hits. Full stop.
Well, plus a few tracks from latest album Time, which became his first UK. No. 1 album since 1976’s A Night on the Town and climbed into the Australian Top 10.
One of the new tunes, Can't Stop Me Now, which he performed at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Glasgow last year, was accompanied on Saturday night by archival footage from his early days.
But apart from the few newies, the soccer-mad septuagenarian stuck to fan favourites, including You Wear It Well, Some Guys Have All the Luck, Tonight's the Night, Cat Stevens’ poignant The First Cut is the Deepest and the other song he played at Celtic Park, Rhythm of My Heart.
Rod Stewart had the Perth Arena crowd in fine voice last night, although his own voice was less impressive, says reviewer Simon Collins. Picture: Duncan Barnes
Stewart dedicated the latter on Saturday night to war veterans, with big screens rolling what amounted to an army recruitment video. One can only presume this goes down a treat in the US.
The acoustic section of the show dragged, especially during the dreary nostalgia of recent song Brighton Beach ("About my misspent youth - well, it wasn't that misspent, I got there in the end," Stewart mused) and saccharine wedding staple Have I Told You Lately.
Stewart finally remembered that he's a rocker, belting out recent Celt-rock number She Makes Me Happy and Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Rock and Roller.
You're in My Heart, about his early infatuation for Britt Ekland and Celtic Football Club, segued into Stay With Me, originally by Faces, his supergroup with fellow hair farmer Ronnie Wood. During this classic, Stewart booted soccer balls into the crowd, sending fans scrambling for a souvenir.
Cheesy yacht rock hit Sailing and arguably his greatest song, Maggie May, completed the main set. Bizarrely, during the latter hit, the impish Stewart donned a mask of his own face, thrown on stage by a fan.
The curtain fell, then quickly rose again as balloons fell from the roof for the daggy disco-rock hit of 1978, Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, to end the two-hour show.
One day he’ll get an answer he doesn’t like, but for now the father of eight and grandfather to three-year-old Delilah del Toro remains a concert drawcard.
From fronting blues and soul-inspired bands, such as Faces and the Jeff Beck Group, on London’s nascent blues-rock scene to new wave, soft rock and crooning through five Great American Songbook albums in the Noughties, Stewart knows a moving target is harder to bring down.
Of course, still having all that hair helps.
The arena was already packed when former Australian Crawl frontman James Reyne opened the night with a booming run through his hits, including Hammerhead and Motor's Too Fast plus Crawl classics Downhearted, Errol and Reckless.
