Rod Stewart is a buffoon and a lech who’s spent nearly 40 years proudly embarrassing himself onstage and on numerous musical projects (the cover of his Christmas album, Merry Christmas, Baby, conveys about as much yuletide cheer as a holiday sweater sprayed with Drakkar Noir). But I still hold out hope that the Stewart of the 1960s and ’70s—the guy who fronted the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces and who cut an incredible run of Stonesy folk-blues LPs, the apex of which is 1971’s Every Picture Tells a Story—might return to his earthy, gently rambunctious roots. The previous time I saw Stewart play, he brought a band consisting mainly of women wearing miniskirts, he kicked soccer balls into the audience, and his stage setup looked like a cross between a nightclub and an office building, with lots of glass and cheap-looking plastic. But he also had a sense of humor about himself, which is more than you can say about many artists nowadays—and he played all the hits. Plus, my fiancee loves him, and her over-the-moon enthusiasm is worth the price of admission. v
