Photos from Bangkok promoter Bec-Tero

I have now seen Rod Stewart live in concert twice. The first time was in Toronto with the Faces in October 1975. The second time was this week, in Bangkok, on March 4, 2009. Thirty-four years. We’re both still doing alright.

Here’s my review of the latest show, published in much-abbreviated form in the incredibly shrinking Daily Xpress.

Trailing history and superlatives behind him, Rock’n'Roll Hall-of-Famer Rod Stewart gave a sold-out Impact Arena a snoot-full of both Rockin’ Rod and Karaoke Rod on Wednesday night, and the crowd would have loved to hear a whole lot more.

A couple of months ago the man who’s sold a quarter of a billion records joined the “When I’m 64″ club, but he showed little sag as he piled on the hits and served up a few surprises for Bangkok, including yielding the stage to his 21-year-old daughter Ruby for a couple of numbers.

In the end, though, Stewart left without a final goodbye, leaving the audience and his band to finish off the last choruses of “Sailing”. It seemed an abrupt ending to a thoroughly enjoyable but oddly uneven show.

Things got off to a magnificent start with Rod at his charming best on “Some Guys Have All the Luck”, “It’s a Heartache” and “You Wear It Well”.

He turned up the heat with Sam Cooke’s “Having a Party” and then sang “Rhythm of My Heart”, which ended in a stunning set piece with his three back-up singers taking cues from him one by one to unleash some serious vocal stretches.

Julie Delgado, Natasha Pearce and Esterlee Nicholson are the ladies he’s kiddingly called “the Lap Tops”, a pun on lap dancers and the Four Tops, but musically they carried a heavy load, muscling through Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary” on their own later and, in this number, building expectations as high as they were going to get.

Then technology stepped in to wreck things. The giant central screen at the back of the stage, which had been adding much to the fun with a spoof Hollywood teaser and Motown video clips, went berserk. Half the imagery was obliterated in a pixel firestorm that ruined all of Stewart’s “Downtown Train” (with the help of an ill-advised double-drum solo).

The technicians struggled to douse the electronic fireworks as the band carried on with Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut is the Deepest” and a lacklustre “Reason to Believe”, but the screen continued to pulsate like an immense, menacing robot refusing to be ignored.

They finally just pulled the plug on it in time for Ruby Stewart, Rod’s daughter with former long-time girlfriend Kelly Emberg, to give the old man a rest and perform Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Rescue Me”, the soul hit by Fontella Bass.

Ruby’s a fine singer and drew cheers from the audience, but her participation only added to the concert’s gradual unhinging.

Interestingly, Ruby’s four-year-old step-brother Alastair wasn’t far away. Rod has brought along on this tour his wife Penny Lancaster-Stewart and their son, Rod’s seventh child.

Their dad came back onstage, gave his first of two assurances that the screen disaster wasn’t his fault, sang his stomping version of “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?”, a tune that was plaintive when John Fogerty wrote it, and then took a break.

He soon got things back on track, though, with “Forever Young”, “Twisting the Night Away” and especially a lovely rendition of “You’re in My Heart”. A massive crowd response greeted the Van Morrison classic “Have I Told You Lately”, and the evening headed deep into karaoke territory.

It was absolutely amazing how many people in the arena were ready and able to provide the vocals for “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”. Stewart twice silenced the band so the fans could pretend they were him. It was quite moving, and a lot of fun.

And so was the footie. Having displayed his devotion to Scotland’s Celtic Football Club, whose logo adorned the drum kits and the stage, Rod hoofed a couple of dozen balls into the crowd while singing “Hot Legs”.

Then came the best of Stewart’s songs, “Maggie May”, which took a couple of minutes to find its power but certainly went home happy, Rod’s voice as clear as a bell.

The breweries of England ran dry when the final two tunes of the night — “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Sailing” — were hits on the radio, and the beered-up legions in the Impact audience soaked up every note.

Stewart has performed alongside the best in the business, so full credit to his current 11-piece band for stepping into the shoes of goliaths. An American reviewer called them “a backup band of good-looking young people”, but they’re more than that.

Saxophonist Katja Rieckermann was an audience favourite and, along with “the Lap Tops”, J’Anna Jacoby on violin and mandolin added had a slew of memorable moments.

The other musicians were David Palmer on drums, Matt O’Connor on percussion and drums, Conrad Korsch on bass, Chuck Kentis on keyboards and a pair of guitarists whose names I’ve been unable to discover, but they “looked like” Rod’s former stringbenders Jim Cregan and John Corey.

This might have been a Faces reunion tour for Rod, but Ronnie Wood either has his face in a pint of beer or is “working on a solo project” (depending on your translator), and the trumpeted new Faces album and tour was called off. Or was it? Negotiations continue, as does Stewart’s tour with this band.

Having warmed up in Florida at the end of January, they’d played Singapore the previous Saturday, were due in Hong Kong on March 7 (plenty of sightseeing time between gigs — the Stewart clan took in Bangkok’s Grand Palace before the show, where the crowd he drew got big enough that the family fled by long-tail boat) and will do four shows in Japan.

In mid-May they’re in sunny Tenerife, Spain, and then Plymouth, England, in July with four dates following in Ireland and finally the Summer Beach Festival on July 10 in Eckenförde, Germany. Dates are still being added, the latest on the west coast of North America.

THE FULL SET LIST:

“Some Guys Have All the Luck”
Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache”
“This Old Heart of Mine”
“You Wear It Well”
“Having a Party”
“Rhthym of My Heart”
Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train”
“The First Cut is the Deepest”
“Reason to Believe”

RUBY STEWART: “Son of a Preacher Man”, “Rescue Me”

“Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”

INTERMISSION

“Forever Young”
“Twisting the Night Away”
“Baby Jane”
“You’re in My Heart”
“Have I Told You Lately”
“I Don’t Want to Talk About It”

BAND: “Proud Mary”

“Hot Legs”
“Maggie May”
“Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”
“Sailing”

THREE INTERESTING THINGS

* It took 37 years for another British act to match Rod Stewart’s feat of having an album and a single sitting atop both the US and UK charts. Coldplay did it last June with “Viva La Vida” and its title track. Stewart did it in 1971 with “Every Picture Tells a Story” and “Maggie May”.

* Rod sold more tickets than anyone else touring the US in 2007 except Justin Timberlake.

* Unofficially, Stewart holds the record for the biggest concert audience ever: 3.5 million watched his free show on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve 1994.