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| It seems
as if I’ve always liked Rod Stewart and the Faces but it must have
started somewhere? I guess, as with a lot of us, it was Maggie May that
first brought him to our attention, and once we realised here was a man
who liked football, blondes and drinking, we were hooked. Of course that
memorable appearance on Top of the Pops helped, with Rod kicking footballs
out into the audience when he should have been singing, and John Peel
playing what must be the most famous mandolin solo ever.
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I remember buying the
Every Picture Tells a Story album from the first Virgin records store on
Oxford Street
. Us teenagers from Nottingham didn’t frequent the big city very often
at all but for some reason Tats, Bert and I were in
London
for the day. I remember going up the post office tower as it was a novelty
at the time, although it was bombed later on that week by the IRA….I do
remember Tats disappearing for a while so I’ve never been entirely
convinced it was the IRA! This was October 1971 – the same month that
Maggie May was top of the charts. As we left
Oxford Street
by tube Tats was dawdling along behind as he always did, and Bert and I
jumped on the train. The inevitable happened and the doors closed before
Tats got to them, but in the chaos of trying to hold the door open for
him, Rod got caught in the doors. My precious album travelled the entire
distance between two stations caught between two doors. When I got home
the introduction to Maggie May sounded a bit strange but it wasn’t until
seeing him live years later (Rod…not Tats) that I realised the intro
skipped a couple of beats due to a scratch from the 11.15 to Edgware.
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The
first time I saw The Faces I nearly didn’t! I was in
Manchester
at University, just about to start a double period zoology practical
session, when someone announced to me that Rod Stewart tickets had just
gone on sale at the Free Trade Hall. Ignoring my education totally I
escaped the lesson and ran back to UMIST where I was living, to pick up my
cheque book. I then ran all the way to the free trade hall and joined a
queue around the back to buy tickets, only to find that they wouldn’t
accept my cheque. |
| This was
in the days when, rather than throwing financial incentives at students to
go into debt, the banks wouldn’t even trust us to be issued with bankers
cards! I ran all the way back to UMIST again, to rustle up some money from
assorted students and managed to get enough to buy fours tickets. When I
got back to the Free Trade Hall I got the last four tickets, which
weren’t even in front of the stage – they were in a box to the side of
stage so I was assured by a helpful ticket office clerk that view would be
awful! I took them anyway.
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He was
wrong. For a start we were sharing the box with 5 or 6 beautiful teenage
girls who were in a highly excited state at being so close to Rod.
Secondly although the view of the stage was a bit strange, we could see it
all, but from behind a speaker stack. We were above a grand piano, the
surface of which was covered with assorted bottles of Pimms, brandy and
other beverages essential to the smooth running of a Faces concert. It was
also the spot where Rod escaped to when he wasn’t singing and he would
look up at us and have a bit of a chat. We could see straight into the
wings on the side of the stage and amused ourselves spotting footballers
like Denis Law, and various long legged blondes. The only dodgy moment was
when Rod decided to throw his tambourine up to us and we were nearly
ripped to shreds by 6 teenage girls fighting over it! |
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Here’s
what my diary says for the night –
“This
is about the best night I’ve had since I’ve been here (at Manchester
Uni). We went in the coffee bar first for something to eat – me Gordon
Andy and Dave. Then we went to the
Salisbury
and had a couple of rum and blacks, and on down to the Faces – they were
queuing to get in and it was only 7.00pm. Tickets were on sale outside for
£15.00 (I think you’re supposed to gasp here at the extortionate rip
off prices the touts were charging!)
We
found our seats and were a bit disappointed at first but soon found that
they were probably the best seats in the house – the people on the
balcony could hardly see at all. The first group was Long John Baldry and
he was quite good but everyone was waiting for Rod. There was a long gap
of three quarters of an hour and everyone was going mad by this time. Rod
came on to the stripper followed by the Faces – they played from 9.15 to
11.15 and played just about everything except Reason to Believe. There
were lots of Rod and Ron Wood duets, microphone throwing and running
about. He threw his tambourine to us and the girls with us had a massive
scrap for it. The last song lasted for ages and there were people climbing
on the stage from all over the place and getting thrown out. Rod nearly
got dragged into the audience by his scarf. I stood on my seat for two
hours – everyone was waving scarves, banners, clapping and singing all
the time.
The
set list I have in the diary was It’s all over now, Too bad, Borstal
boys, Angel, True Blue, You wear it well, Maggie May, Pool hall Richard,
Stay with me, Amazing Grace, Twisting the night away, Oh no not my baby
and Gasoline Alley.”
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| I must
have enjoyed it – I really have lost count of how many times I’ve seen
him now but it’s somewhere in the high thirties and pretty much
everything he and the Faces have done ranging through vinyl, cassette and
CD. I have about thirty tapes of live recordings picked up along the way
so I must have at least thirty different recordings of Maggie May,
including the reggae version he liked to drift into in the late
seventies!After the Free Trade Hall I saw him at Bellevue a couple of
times where I’m surprised there was anyone left in the audience – so
many were climbing onto the stage and getting thrown out, and this was
before the band came on! I moved back to
Nottingham
and used to see him at the NEC and Leicester; when I ended up down south
it was numerous appearances at Wembley Stadium and Arena.
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| I was never content
with seeing him once a tour – it’s usually been two or three times. I
nearly got killed by a tout when I was trying to spell my spare tickets
outside Wembley Arena and he took offence to that, was refused entrance to
the hotel we were staying in after a day in the rain at Wembley Stadium.
That was an excellent show as it was hot but raining all day, and we
appeared back at the Tower Hotel looking like drowned rats. After we
managed to get in we discovered that the concert was on TV so watched it
again in the dry!
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| I bought the
obligatory tartan scarf after the first concert and wore it with pride at
all the others, until my mum sneakily threw it away! It also made a few
appearances at other shows – Slade for example, but never, never the Bay
City Rollers! |
| Rod was actually
responsible for me being known in the third year at University as “You
with the tartan scarf”. These were the words shouted at me by Professor
Rodgers, our head of department while I was trying to work out an NME
crossword clue with Ed, in the middle of one of his lectures. I had to
confirm that I wished to remain in his lecture in front of 100 students,
so I’d like to thank Rod for the slight element of fame and notoriety
that this brought me!
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Rod fans
were very protective about the scarf as the cutting from the letters page
of Sounds shows...I'm
with you Pete from Manchester! And notice he calls them Rod Stewart AND
Faces - that's the sign of a real fan!
On the left is
another sign of a real fan - yes....I actually bought Ole Ola! |
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I
never realised that I was going to have to defend Mr Stewart so strongly.
I should have known, after several embarrassing moments in the seventies -
This Kickers advert was one of the worst! Then punk came along and the entire
music press laid into him. It was the time of A Night on the Town, Foot
Loose and Fancy Free and Blondes Have More Fun and I liked them, but I
also liked punk. I just about managed to retain some credibility with my
mates for liking Rod and then what does he do….he ran into the eighties!
Tonight I’m Yours was excellent, but then Body Wishes came along and it
was instantly forgettable apart from Baby Jane which was of course
classic. |
| I was working in
Nottingham
when Baby Jane was out and I had tickets for 2 consecutive nights at the
NEC. On the first night a local record shop had chartered an entire train
to take Rod fans from
Nottingham
direct to the station at the NEC. They set up a bar in the guards van so
by the time we got to the gig we were exceedingly drunk! It was really
hot, Rod was at the height of his “tight trousers and rich
Hollywood
superstar” phase, and so the train was at least eighty percent full of
nubile young women dressed in very little! When we got in to the arena we
set off to walk down to the front and were immediately stopped by security
guards at a barrier who informed us that our tickets were for the back of
the ground floor standing area. Unperturbed I instructed Dave to crumple
up his ticket and follow me round to the other side where we waved a
crumpled piece of paper in front of security in dim lighting and were
allowed through. Triumphantly I headed for the front and didn’t notice
the next barrier where we were immediately stopped and thrown out again!
We managed to use the crumpled ticket trick to get back to about half way
and the concert had started by then. By using the end of each song as
cover – lights go down, crowd jumps up, we skip between seats, lights go
down, crowd jumps up ,we crawl under seats, lights go down, crowd jumps
up, we dive over seats, and we eventually arrive at the last barrier
before the front. |
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Unfortunately they have put a combination of the A Team and the Men from
Uncle on this last checkpoint and there is no chance of us getting any
further. We do find though that we’re not the only ones who have been
adopting these tactics and we end up partying with all the die hard,
serious Rod fanatics who have made it as far as this last line and are
determined to make the most of it! Security are even having a good time,
and it was one of the most exciting Rod shows I can remember.
The
next night I drove from
Nottingham
with three friends and had to remain sober – our tickets were for seats
in the stands and due to the throbbing hangover from the night before I
was quite happy with that!
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In 1984
we had Camouflage which had the worst cover version that Rod has ever
done. Lets face it – he is the master of covers as most of his early
albums show, but to even attempt a version of All Right Now was a strange
thing to do and put me off the whole album. AndInfatuation…..Passion
with different words. I blame it on Kelly Emberg. Then Every Beat of my
Heart which was totally forgettable except that “Every Beat of my
Heart” was a classic singalong song. Out of Order was worse. And just
when we think we’re destined to never hear a good Rod Stewart album
again, and be doomed to the three or four greatest hits albums which come
out every year, along comes Vagabond Heart with The Motown Song, Rhythym
of my Heart, Have I told you lately, and
Broken Arrow
. He’s back! And I’ve been sort of OK with him ever since – although
don’t get me started on those American Songbook things. Maybe we’re
both just getting old!
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