Rod Stewart
Unplugged And Seated

THE REVIEW

The MTV Unplugged series has marked, for many great musical guardians, bland performances or, certainly, not unforgettable ones; the exception to the rule comes from this acoustic live... and seated (age is what it is...) of Mr. Rod Stewart.

Last spark of a career of POP excesses, in '93 Rod Stewart produced one of his many sparkling live performances with an hour and a half of concert without the slightest drop, and within which even the wrinkles of time seem to contribute to the creation of a certain mood. A Champagne-blonde singer, in an unbuttoned white shirt, chest rigorously shaved, with bracelets and gold chains, as flashy as ever in his simplicity, a showman and eminent stage animal, this Rod is one of those gentlemen who, despite the age and the last unconvincing Jazz renditions, always hit the right night live.

Touching and irreverent, at once melodramatic actor and clown, in the 90 minutes of this show, few times one does not feel involved by this kind of brawl from the tavern. The songs present are the racing colts, the usual ones, in them are found unattainable women, fickle girls, gala evenings, songs to sing at the top of your lungs, taverns, alcohol, and marginality, mad loves, desperate loves, romanticisms, all performed with total lightness and irony and with decidedly new and almost always improving arrangements, which unexpectedly work well acoustically as one would not have expected.

The dance opens with the very lively “Hot Legs”, indestructible Rhythm’n’Blues where a naughty seventeen-year-old bothers poor Rod... who, playful as ever, shouts that he doesn’t want to know! Buffoon... After the bubbly start, we move to a song with style, a song that poorly concealed, already in unsuspecting times, the love for the Jazzy atmospheres of his latest Songbook. “Tonight Is The Night” with one of the most repetitive choruses ever (very different comes to mind Tonight is the night by Neil Young, it's evident these are words that lead to obsessive repetition!) is a song that longs for romanticisms from a European urban milieu, an unidentified French village is mentioned, in the moment Rod teaches the art of love, a true gem of the genre, like taking a woman from the door to the bed without appearing like a swine. It moves to an intense and more collected moment with the wonderful “Handbags & Gladrags” by Michael D’Abo, performed and played with sincere pathos by a rich but, above all, cohesive band (lately, this song has also been one of the many victims of the Stereophonics).

“Once I was a young man and all I have to do was smile...” here it is, the secret!

Rod doesn't resist too long in the shoes of the refined interpreter and the commitment is immediately tempered by two songs from his more rock-oriented repertoire, “Cut Across Shorty” and “Every Picture Tells A Story” the latter written with his longtime friend, and illustrious guest of the evening, Ronnie Wood (guitarist of the Stones). Perhaps the most beautiful Pop song ever is this “Maggie May”, whose acoustic version presented on this LP brings greater freshness, transforms the song into poetry for every season, you can feel the March wind, but leaves fall from the trees. It does not drop the level with the subsequent "Reason To Believe" by Tim Hardin, where Rod Stewart (at the time still gifted vocally...) highlights once more his qualities as an expressive and refined interpreter.

“Someone like you make it easy to live without somebody else... Still I look to find a reason to believe..”

“People get Ready” by the great Curtis Mayfield is perhaps the only moment where the tone drops and, together, the tension of the concert. Graceful version, but decidedly too pompous with an overabundance of strings, I would say, "sanremese." Definitely better the “cover” of Van Morrison, “Have I Told You Lately”, romantic and well-written song to which this interpretation adds nothing and removes nothing. To introduce a moment of great emotional intensity like the touching “Tom Traubert’s Blues” by Tom Waits, Rod still brings laughter, never giving up on the eternal mix of sentiment and irony that pervades him, and he turns boldly to the audience: “in order to sing this song my friend Tom asked me to build him a pool behind the house where the boys can play...” a story that Rod often brings up also regarding that "Downtown Train" which would have been curious to hear unplugged (at the time when Rod reprised his horrid version of "Downtown Train" I felt like crying...). “Tom Traubert's Blues” is in any case another peak of the album. Elegiac and perfect, less heavy and drunk than the Waitsian version, but splendid lyrical aimed at the moon and darkness falls in the room, and Rod becomes as passionate and touching as ever in quoting the verses of this rogue poetry.

Many people discovered Waits through Rod Stewart who, if he takes something away from the splendid original versions, gives greater ease to the listening of those not used to Waitsian expressive modules. The following “The First Cut Is The Deepest” is a kind of little musical miracle where starting from a beach tune by the first, and not really memorable, Cat Stevens, a splendid and very Stewartian piece developed, where the rich but sober instrumentation and the choirs blend creating a unique suggestion (Last year this song was also by Sheryl Crow, a girl eternally promised left in the air). Following is “Mandolin Wind” a “traditional” love song in the fullest sense of the term, Rod like an old cowboy picks up his mandolin and whispers words of love to his beloved...

“..’Cause I know you don’t play, but I teach you one day, because I love you..”

One of the most vibrant and instrumental pieces from the time spent with the Small Faces was certainly “Stay With Me” (also redone in a questionable way by Def Leppard, if I'm not mistaken...), which once again shines in this acoustic version, where every instrument finds its space of glory and improvisation and which takes nothing away from the rampant and original version. On the same resounding line is “” played with great transport, also by the audience in the hall (see VHS). The concert closes with another borrowed face, that of Sam Cooke, who offers a swinging Rod Stewart in a choral “Havig A Party”, a festive and carefree closure after an evening of joy, intimate memories, whiskey with friends, and feelings. A record for many, not for everyone, refined and lovely always brilliant in every point that gives a good general idea of Rod Stewart's artistic life with something extra. Once again demonstration of how this man has often settled, perhaps right because of his jocular soul, for appearing and not being, never reaching the full potential in music.

It will appeal to all Unplugged fanatics (but for them, the title is enough...) and lovers of the Acoustic and Neo-Acoustic genre. Especially addressing the worshipers of the American songwriting tradition, I recommend giving this album a listen, they will find many cues, great classics by Rod Stewart performed with new verve and excellently amalgamated with covers that almost always provide new arrangements and new light to the interpreted pieces, and that’s no small thing. Specifying my vote, among the MTV Unplugged series, the vote should be 5, for the emotional charge and pure feeling, but evaluating the concert within the realm of sound, a 4 seems more than sufficient to me. And then, isn’t it splendid that a former football player, Scottish, flashy, womanizer loaned to music, at sixty years old still sings about his mischievous high school companions ?? Better than Prozac!