Rod in Brazil

Rod was back in Brazil in September and our Brazilian reporter Gustavo Morais was in attendance…

The legendary rock star Rod Stewart performed in São Paulo, at Allianz Arena Park, on 19th September. The show was the second one in 2015 on Brazilian soil and it took place one
day before the end of winter in Brazil. The artist hadn’t performed any concerts in the country since 2008.

It was 8:58 pm when the lights went off and all the 15,000 (almost sold out) people present were thrilled by the opening theme of the tour: “The Hits”. At 9pm sharp the first notes from “Infatuation” drove the crowd wild by engaging them into singing and dancing in pure joy of seeing Rod wearing black pants and yellow jacket. To keep the dancing mood going, Rod made an unpredictable change by stepping away from the traditional 80s pop and leaning toward soul music by playing the Sam Cooke hit “Having a Party” – just like the first song, no one could stand still.

After the excitement driven by those two songs, Rod overcame the audience’s expectations with “It’s a Heartache”, the public, again, was ecstatic. It took Stewart little more than 10 minutes to make the audience experience one of the best rock concerts.

Further more the rock star sang “Young Turks”, but this one didn’t excite the crowd as much as the other ones. Later on, Rod thanked everybody in Portuguese (“obrigado”) and,
no longer in the yellow jacket, welcomed the public into singing “Tonight’s the night”. They all sang the chore as one.

After alluring the crowd back again, Rod performed the famous “Baby Jane”, “Rhythm of My Heart” – broadcasting the tradiconal number in which backing vocals go to center stage and do the vocal frills – and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain ?” (well snowed in Brazil).

Next came “Forever Young” in which David Palmer rocked the drum solo, giving Rod some time to change into a pink suit. Before starting the second part of song, Rod asked the band to stop playing and showed off, with a touch of humor, his exotic clothing.

Already in different clothes, Rod talked to the audience and asked them to sit while the crew made adjustments on the equipment. “The First Cut Is the Deepest”, “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” and “Have I Told You Lately” came next, all sung perfectly by the audience who even shed a few tears. Following the orchestra, Rod Stewart performed his new song “Please”, which will be on his forthcoming album, and is already known among Brazilians.

Continuing the sequence, came “(I Know) I’m Losing You” and “Sweet Little Rock & Roller”. It was the first time that Rod sang “(I Know) I’m Losing You” in a show in Brazil.

During “I’m Every Woman”, the backing vocals took over the lead in order to let Rod change again. The audience felt the moment and interacted just fine with the women.

In black clothes, Rod sang “You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)” and watched the Brazilians sing along, again. Furthermore, he performed “Maggie May” and the song echoed in the stadium. Later, he presented “Stay With Me” and showed the fans that he could also kick soccer balls. The kick, though, caused a little trouble between the people in
the audience who were aggressively fighting for the ball.

The singer finished the show performing “Da Ya Think with I’m Sexy?”. After a round of applause, Stewart and his band
returned to the stage and played “Sailing”, his career’s most popular song in Brazil. After saying goodbye, the fans were applauding again, showing to the artist how impressed and mesmerized they were by one of the greatest names in rock’ history.

Review by Gustavo Morais
Photos: by courtesy and with special thanks to @Budweiserbrasil and @budweiser_br