Rod Stewart to rock Budapest Still wearing it well

Rod Stewart British rock legend will take to the stage in Budapest on Saturday June 26 on 56-osok tere near Hõsõk tere (Heroes’ Square) at the annual free T-mobile concert. Past performers at the open air concert drawing hundreds of thousands near City Park have included Santana, Elton John and Simply Red.

FOOTBALL TO FOLK

This year the arrangers have managed to attract Rod Stewart, who enjoyed his earliest successes as the lead singer of various bands and as a solo artist in the late 1960s. He started out, however, not as a musician, but as a footballer for FC Brentford. It was only in the early ‘60s that he began making music. Stewart was drawn to British folk music and joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) movement. A little later, however, he became fascinated by black rhythm and blues and learnt to play the harmonica while honing his guitar skills. Stewart’s first single "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" was released in 1964. Following various hit and miss attempts in a number of small bands, in 1969 Stewart decided to go it alone again. His first album An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down came out in 1970. At around the same time, however, he also joined The Faces, recording four albums with the group and remaining its lead singer until 1975.At the same time he recorded five further solo albums, all of which stormed the US and British charts. The then 31 year old did not rest: he got his own television show A Night on the Town in 1976 and continued to tour the world.

UK tour Rod Stewart tickets on sale now for 2010

Rod Stewart's vocation has brought about countless classic songs, and he remains a fantastic live performer.

In the UK Rod Stewart will comeback to perform here in July, after a hugely successful run of concerts last month. Rod Stewart tickets are still available for shows at Edinburgh Castle, Sheffield Hallam FM Arena, Liverpool Echo Arena, Glasgow SECC, London O2 Arena, Belfast Odyssey Arena and Dublin O2 Arena.
The cheapest tickets are recently priced at £60 and are available for shows at Glasgow SECC on Monday 26th July and London O2 Arena on Wednesday 28th July.
Rod Stewart tickets fans will see the legendary singer perform hits such as Hot Legs, Maggie May and Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?

Ronnie Wood: 'Rod Stewart isn't ruled out of Faces reunion'

Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood has said that the band "haven't ruled out" getting original frontman Rod Stewart to play with them again.
The reuniting band have recruited Simply Red's Mick Hucknall as a replacement for Stewart, and are set to play the Sussex Vintage At Goodwood festival (August 13-15).
Wood told NME that Stewart wasn't on board because of schedule clashes, but claimed they were on good terms and he may join them in the future. Stewart in fact told fans at his O2 Arena gig last week (May 29) to give the Simply Red man "a chance" if they went to see the band live.
"We haven't ruled Rod out," he said. "It's just that his schedule is totally crossing over exactly when we wanted him. We've got Mick Hucknall because his voice is just like Rod's was in the '70s."
He added: "The door's not closed to Rod, but we're carrying on because it's worth it."
The guitarist said that the band may tour in January and hoped to play Glastonbury and other festivals in 2011.

Rod Stewart at the O2 Arena

Watching the swaying, singing audience at the O2 arena, it struck me that Rod Stewart would make the greatest wedding singer of all time. He’s a genial entertainer with a great set of pipes who gives the audience exactly what they want: the hits, some standards, a bit of soul, disco, rock ’n’ roll, romantic ballads and arms-linked singalongs. There’s even cheeky banter and interval time built in for toilet breaks.

“Is there anyone here from Essex?” Stewart asks, with a wink, before strapping 6ft-plus English model Penny Lancaster appears on stage in a red mini- dress, grinning and dancing rather gormlessly to his lively version of the Sam Cook classic Twisting the Night Away. “That’s the wife,” quips Stewart. “I actually told her to stay in the van.” And where else but at a wedding or a Rod Stewart concert could you expect to see a 65-year-old man with his jacket off, shirt tails hanging out, shaking his bony behind beneath a glitterball and asking if we think he’s sexy?

After 30 years as a world- beating superstar, Stewart knows how to put on a show. There is nothing cool about him any more, if there ever was.

The stage is so bright and clean, it is like a Sixties set from American Bandstand blown up for The X Factor, and the versatile band are constrained in tight suits, with backing vocalists in matching sexy mini-dresses. It looks and feels like a cheesy review show, not dissimilar to the kind of thing Cliff Richard puts on, although there is a time those two would have been at the opposite ends of the rock spectrum. The thing that raises the bar is Stewart himself. His hoarse, soulful voice has always been a distinctive instrument: there’s sensitivity in his delivery and there’s a way that he closes his eyes and delicately sways when he sings that suggests he still gets lost in these songs.

And what songs. His voice always sounded old; now when he sings Handbags and Gladrags he really could be the disappointed grandfather reprimanding his wayward granddaughter. After all these years, and all these hits, and all the albums of cover versions, there’s never a dull or self-indulgent moment. The 20,000-plus audience belt out his classics with him, and when he leads them through a mass choral version of Sailing, it is impossible not to be swept overboard.