Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Jernej Vene
Location: Stadthalle / Vienna / Austria
Concert date: 01.07.2014
Attendance: 8000
Ticket price: from 74€
Few acts from the golden age of British rock (of the late) sixties and seventies are still holding on to their audiences several decades after their creative peak, and still easily fill the biggest concert venues despite astronomical ticket prices. We’re talking about a handful of the most eminent musicians, who aren’t strangers even to sipping tea with the British Queen, musicians who long ago outgrew the world of music and over the years became part of everyday social life. The prestigious cream of the crop includes the still-living Beatle Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones (more than topical last month), and, say, Elton John and Eric Clapton.
Rod Stewart belongs among those giants too, a former member of Jeff Beck Group and Faces, and since the early seventies above all a successful solo artist whose voice breathed soul into countless radio hits of the past four decades. Despite having turned 69, Rod Stewart is still actively touring. He last swung by within reach of our trusty steeds four years ago, when he played Vienna and Budapest, and at the end of this June he returned to Vienna’s biggest indoor arena, Stadthalle, comparable in size to our Stožice. The two-person Rockline crew headed to the Austrian capital in the pleasant company of the agency Koncerti.net, using the afternoon hours, among other things, for the obligatory sweep of the nearby Mediamarkt, where there’s always some CD worth buying.
Proverbial German precision meant sticking to the announced schedule, so by half past seven in the evening everything was ready for the start of the show. Stewart’s audiences today are a seasoned crowd, so the early start is the logical result of catering to the target audience. The curtain stretched between the stage and the audience dropped twenty minutes before eight, and the show finally kicked off with the Isley Brothers’ This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)!
The megalomaniac stage sheltered a sizable troop of backing musicians, who were a reliable support for Stewart’s somewhat worn-out voice at the start of the show. If you quickly make peace with Stewart’s form, which keeps him from maneuvering in the higher vocal registers, watching the performance becomes one big pleasure! The concert production is already tailored to the American market, since Rod Stewart will play a series of eighteen shows in Las Vegas this fall, so the visual side doesn’t lag far behind the music. Lighting effects of every shape and kind added extra glamour to the show, building on the already spectacular act of a rotating backing crew of no fewer than thirteen musicians, who made sure the sound was full.
Even though Rod Stewart is colorblind, his getup was seriously eye-catching! A team of stylists makes sure the charming Rod looks extravagant even in his old age. How else would you describe the combination of a shimmering gold jacket over a white shirt, with black trousers and bright red socks? Stewart used the longer instrumental stretches during the show to change clothes several times, ending the night in a »Hawaiian« shirt and football boots on his feet.
The set was mostly made up of big hits, and Stewart slotted in Can’t Stop Me Now, the only track from his current album »Time« (2013). One of the highlights of the first part of the show came at the end of Rhythm of my Heart, built from separate duels between Stewart and his three backing vocalists. Although a big chunk of the set was covers, it’s worth knowing that Stewart himself is responsible for popularizing many of them, and his live delivery (still) works like magic. Not only does the British musician remain an excellent interpreter of love songs, he also still has an unmistakable vocal tone that has no equal in the music world.
After a playful middle section with Forever Young came a more intimate start to the second half of the evening, as Stewart settled onto a bar stool at center stage and, accompanied by two guitars and a zither, opened an acoustic bouquet of intense emotional charge with Cat Stevens’ The First Cut Is the Deepest. Although the gentle acoustic sound further exposed the weakness of his voice, the loud support of the whole hall on the chorus of the unforgettable ballad I Don’t Want to Talk About It sent goosebumps all over the body!
With a tribute to Chuck Berry, backed by the roaring horn section on Sweet Little Rock & Roller, it was time for the final blowout, which the crowd greeted at the start with a stampede from the seats right up to the stage, so a few hundred of the most fired-up fans took in the last part of the show on their feet. From there on, things moved extremely fast! After a breather with Prod Mary (sung by one of the backing vocalists), Stewart came back on stage for Hot Legs and proved he’s still plenty vital! The longtime fan of this season’s Scottish football champions Celtic FC booted a few dozen signed balls into the crowd like proper missiles, and one of them, believe it or not, landed in the hands of Slovenia’s walking music encyclopedia Jernej Vene, while the continuation with the anthemic Maggie May and Baby Jane was no less intense. The cruise through the treasure chest of evergreen hits went on with the ballad Sailing, before Rod Stewart and company, to the general delight of the fired-up Austrian crowd, tossed in one more hit from the disco era as a farewell, Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?.
The question asked most often among fans of classic pop and rock has long been: »where the hell will we go to concerts in a decade or two, when our music idols are already in the great beyond?«. These days we’re catching the last shows of true legends who shaped the course of popular music. One of them is Rod Stewart, and whether he’ll ever play again within reach of the average Slovenian wallet is an open question, if you can even put a ticket costing a three-digit number of euros in that category. Stewart’s hits, backed up by a proper concert show, predictably delivered a carefree mental leap back to the seventies and eighties of the last century. A spectacle it would be a sin to miss!
Transport to the concert courtesy of the ever-fearless Koncert freak!
Setlist
1. This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)
2. Having a Party
3. Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)
4. You Wear It Well
5. Can’t Stop Me Now
6. Some Guys Have All the Luck
7. Rhythm of My Heart
8. It’s a Heartache
9. Downtown Train
10. Forever Young
11. The First Cut Is the Deepest
12. I Don’t Want to Talk About It
13. Reason to Believe
14. Have I Told You Lately
15. Sweet Little Rock & Roller
16. Proud Mary
17. You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)
18. Hot Legs
19. Maggie May
20. Baby Jane
21. Sailing
22. Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?
Photo gallery
