\u201cOne Last Time\u201d tour<\/a> back to Tampa.<\/p>\nOne more time. Two more times. Who can keep track?<\/p>\n
As his backing band filled the stage at the Hard Rock Event Center, it was actually the fourth straight year he\u2019s played the venue.<\/p>\n
The first two times weren\u2019t part of this official goodbye tour \u2014 one that\u2019s now stretched further than his ski-slope schnoz.<\/p>\n
At 81, I wondered how that trademark raspy voice could possibly hold up after all these years of wear and tear. Call me an ageist, but my expectations are low for presidents, performers and anointed knights at this stage of their careers.<\/p>\n
There he stood, however. Still rasping \u2014 and not sounding half bad.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, that would have to suffice.<\/p>\n
With no warm up act, Stewart ambled on stage precisely at 8 p.m. dressed all in black, opening with the 1984 hit \u201cInfatuation.\u201d His chaotic head of hair spiked in a thousand directions.<\/p>\n
Whatever work he\u2019s had done, he looks pretty darn good. How does he do it?<\/p>\n
And did he just wink at me?<\/p>\n
His supporting band features more than a dozen multi-talented musicians and backing vocalists. With that many people filling the stage, it helps mask the imperfections. And there were some notable ones.<\/p>\n
He struggled at the start of a campy, jazzy and, frankly, sort of weird version of his signature hit \u201cMaggie May.\u201d And he messed up the start of \u201cDa Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy?\u201d These flubs were eyebrow raising, given that he performs both tunes religiously every show.<\/p>\n
Stewart, a part-time Florida resident, is past the point of wooing new generations of fans. No one under 21 was allowed through the doors anyway \u2014 fitting, perhaps, because when I polled a bunch of our youthful newsroom employees earlier in the day, none of them knew much, if anything, about him. \u201cMaybe that he\u2019s British?\u201d one recent college grad offered. She didn\u2019t sound confident.<\/p>\n
Generations ago, Rod Stewart was a very big deal. He served as Jeff Beck\u2019s lead singer until Stewart and his dark-haired doppelganger Ronnie Wood formed Faces, a reboot of Small Faces. Almost immediately, Stewart launched a massively successful solo career before Faces even put out their first album. His style and distinctive voice made him one of the most alluring frontmen in music. He packed stadiums in the \u201870s, \u201880s and into the \u201890s.<\/p>\n
That long run of success has left him with a slew of chart toppers to draw upon, and he summoned many of them Tuesday night during his 20-song, 95-minute set. Songs like \u201cYoung Turks\u201d had the crowd on their feet.<\/p>\n
There would be no Faces songs, however. At his last show a few days ago in Hollywood, he featured two. Not tonight. This would be one of the shortest Stewart sets in some time.<\/p>\n
But there were covers galore \u2014 including \u201cThe First Cut is the Deepest\u201d (Cat Stevens) and \u201cHave I Told You Lately\u201d (Van Morrison), which he made into hits eons ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do believe my recording was far superior to his,\u201d he quipped about Morrison\u2019s song. His fans sang along.<\/p>\n
All 1,500 seats inside the event center were accounted for. Older fans denied their aching joints if only for an hour and a half. The room felt full of newspaper readers. God bless every one of them.<\/p>\n
He ended with the O\u2019Jays hit \u201cLove Train\u201d \u2014 the last of 15 covers during a 20-song set. Over the last six decades, he\u2019s recorded pretty much all of the songs in his setlist and made them his own. But they will always be covers.<\/p>\n
In spurts, there were energetic moments Tuesday. (Give the man credit. He\u2019s 81!) But often, Stewart faded into the background, resting on the drum riser or letting his band assume the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n
He was off stage completely while his backing vocalists sang lead parts on the Chaka Khan cover \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman\u201d and Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s \u201cProud Mary.\u201d After \u201cProud Mary\u201d he came back on stage just as the song had ended and waved to the applauding crowd as if he had something to do with it. He really didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
There would also be little acknowledgement of the audience. Four straight years in Tampa, but he behaved as if this could have been Topeka, Kansas. \u201cThank you, Tampa\u201d was as intimate as he got as he walked off stage without an encore.<\/p>\n
At a concert hall attached to a casino, it\u2019s a safe bet Stewart gets a fat stack of chips written into his performance rider. But is this what his audience deserves? An aging icon playing with house money?<\/p>\n
I think he just winked again!<\/p>\n
Rod Stewart March 3 setlist at Hard Rock Event Center <\/p>\n
\u201cTonight\u2019s the Night (Gonna be Alright)\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe First Cut is the Deepest\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHandbags and Gladrags\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d Rather Go Blind\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Talk About it\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave I Told You Lately\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome Guys Have all the Luck\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDa Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Roderick Stewart keeps winking at us. On Tuesday, he brought his \u201cOne Last Time\u201d tour back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[83874,83873,13424,78059,83872,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-177400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-backing-vocalists","tag-event-center","tag-hard-rock-event-center","tag-rod-stewart","tag-small-faces","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}