As Rod Stewart returned to the stage of the Hollywood Bowl after the fourth of his five costume changes on Wednesday, June 10, the 81-year-old rock legend greeted the crowd there for his farewell tour by stating the obvious.
“So, I’m wearing a red suit now,” Stewart announced looking very much like a human tomato. “Men at my age should know better. But I don’t (bleepin’) care.”
The audience roared, laughing with their cheeky champion as Stewart carried on with the kind of show he’s sworn he’ll never take on tour again, though it’s perfect and polished for the semi-regular Las Vegas residencies he’s done before and admits he will do again.
The One More Time Tour is the typical kind of semi-permanent farewell that rock stars do when they get to the point in life where the grinding drudgery of the road has fully lost its appeal. And for Stewart, it’s a chance to celebrate his deep catalog of hits and that voice with the trademark rasp, which seemed to have barely lost any of its power over his six decades as a star.
“This is my last time here, so let’s have a party tonight,” Stewart said after opening the show with his 1984 Top 10 hit “Infatuation.” And that’s what he did, with a loose, playful attitude matched to the kind of professional showmanship that’s kept him in shiny gold jackets and skinny black pants for decades now.
Early on, Stewart paid tribute to his early influences and inspirations for the popular covers albums he’s done over the years. The Sam Cooke cover “Having a Party” slipped into the Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mind (Is Weak for You)” and that into Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache.”
“You know how many times I’ve played this wonderful, wonderful theater?” Stewart asked before answering his own question. “Fourteen times!”
“Tonight I’m Yours (Don’t Hurt Me),” the title track of his 1981 album “Tonight I’m Yours,” started the shift of the set from hit covers to hit originals. The new wave-ish number raced along, Stewart dancing, and occasionally turning his back to the seats to playfully wiggle his bum at the crowd for what would not be the only time of the night.
That kind of playfulness continued at the end of the song when, as the cheers and applause started to wind down, Stewart beckoned with both hands for it to continue.
“It’s my last time,” he told them with a grin. “I’ve got to milk it.”
“Some Guys Have All the Luck” had the crowd singing along as Stewart sang with his backing dancers, all in short sparkly yellow dresses, who danced in unison in tribute to Robert Palmer’s own cover take on the Persuaders song.
“Forever Young,” a 1988 Stewart original and fan favorite, followed, his band slipping into an interlude of traditional Scottish step dancing and folk music before Stewart, now onto his third change of the night, returned for a final verse and chorus.
By the midpoint of the 25 songs over two hours, the hits got bigger and bigger. “The First Cut Is the Deepest” featured fiddle and harp accompaniment and one of his best vocals of the night. “Tonight’s the Night,” which he introduced by noting “apparently a lot of babies were conceived [to this],” seems more sweet than shocking as it had been judged when radio stations banned it for some sexual innuendo in the late ’70s.
“The first time I ever played here was in 1972 with the Faces,” Stewart noted as he introduced a pair of songs by the English band that included future Rolling Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood, Kenney Jones, Ian McLagen and Ronnie Lane, “That was some band to be in.”
“Ooh La La” and “Stay With Me,” two of the Faces’ best and biggest hits, followed, with Stewart singing while vintage photos of the band filled the video screens, reminding you of just how much swagger and cool the Faces really had.
A mini-tribute to his 1971 breakout solo album “Every Picture Tells a Story” followed that, with a version of the album’s cover of the Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” followed by the not-often performed folk rock of “Mandolin Wind.”
The album’s big single, “Maggie May,” may have taken some listeners back to childhood when they first heard it on their AM-FM clock radio – that can’t have been just me, can it? – and it remains as lovely a tune as ever from Stewart’s vocal to the mandolin, bass and fiddle lines that take it to its finish.
Other highlights of the back half of the show included a powerfully bluesy take on Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind.” “I recorded this with Ronnie Wood,” Stewart told the audience. “We had two bottles of white wine, and we did two takes and we got the song.”
“Young Turks,” a Stewart original from 1981, sparked another round of dancing before “Rhythm of My Heart” slowed things down for a tribute to Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. As Stewart sang, the video screens showed images of the Ukrainian war with Russia and New York Post headlines both supportive of the Ukrainians – “Fight like Zel” – and critical of President Donald Trump’s ambivalence about Russian President Vladimir Putin – “President Trump: This is a dictator,” over a photo of Putin.
“I get criticized: ‘He’s gone off stage, and he’s having a rest,’” Stewart said after changing into that red suit while his backing vocalists performed Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” “Having a rest? I’ll have you know I can run the 100 meters in 19 seconds!”
“People Get Ready,” the Curtis Mayfield song he performed with his former bandmate Jeff Beck when Stewart played the Bowl in 2019, was followed by “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” which he dedicated to his family. His wife, Penny Lancaster-Stewart, and six of his seven children were at the show, “Probably in the bar,” he joked.
A pair of big hits closed out the main set, “Hot Legs” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” both of them fan favorites that again got the crowd on its feet to dance and sing.
“Thank you very much for making my last night so memorable,” Stewart said before playing the O’Jays’ “Love Train” as his encore.
“We live in a war-torn world, do we not?” he continued, another note of concern about life outside the bubble of the carefree party of rock and roll music. “Bombs going off everywhere. Everybody attacking each other. It’s just horrid.
“But this song by the O’Jays – just listen to the word,” Stewart urged the packed amphitheater.
“The next stop that we make will be England,” Stewart sang. “Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too. Don’t you know that it’s time to get on board? “And let this train keep on riding, riding on through.”
Stewart had saluted a photograph of Zelensky at the end of “Rhythm of the Heart.” Here, with a message of joining hands, he earned a salute of his own.