University of Virginia Library

Smashing Set

A short delay, and then
surprisingly, the top bill of Rod
Stewart and the Small Faces came
out. Their set was smashing, by far
the finest of the evening. Rod
Stewart was vocalist for Jeff Beck;
he split, along with guitarist Ron
Wood, and joined the Small Faces,
who had just lost their
leader/vocalist/guitarist. The Faces
put out an album, First Step; then
Stewart, Wood, and a few other
musicians put out The Rod Stewart
Album and Gasoline Alley. First
Step is fine hard rock, slightly
Beckish but very much an original
sound. The other two albums are
very personally Stewart, with
excellent arrangements of songs like
"Street Fighting Man," "Country
Comforts" by Elton John, and
original Stewart songs, and with a
feeling similar to that found in such
earlier Traffic songs as "Crying to
be Heard."

For the concert, songs from all
the albums were performed.
"Country Comforts" was first, and
then the Faces went into several
medleys of numbers. They would
play from a song such as "Street
Fighting Man," then jam for a bit,
then move into another piece like
"You're My Girl," then jam some
more and so on. Ron Wood on
guitar was tremendous, playing
bottleneck, inventing riffs, playing
the leads. The Original Faces, on
drums, bass and organ, were solid,
playing the often complex parts of
Stewart's arrangements with a lot
of spirit. The only thing which
might have been missing was some
of the beautiful piano from the
Stewart albums, but I'm not
complaining.

In performance, Rod Stewart is
best compared to Mick Jagger,
swinging the mike around, but he is
not an imitation by any means.
Where Jagger has a theatrical side to
him, Stewart has blues. They are
present in all his work, even when
not directly visible, and when he
has to he can sing in a gutty wail
almost like Janis. At the concert he
said, "I've got a cold and sound
pretty shitty tonight, so listen to
the band, they're fucking good."
Ha — he was fucking good himself.