The June 6th, Scottrade Center show definitely had a couple of surprises ! Ticket sales ended up being good as the venue seats appeared to be quite full. Sitting among us common folk in attendance was Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers ! Seems that Ronald is Kimmi Johnson-Breaux’s (Rod’s back-up singer’s) brother-in-law. Carlos Santana put the spotlight on Ronald, and after taking a bow from his seat, security then escorted Mr. Isley up onto the stage for an obviously impromptu delightful short version of ‘Who’s That lady’ and a few lines of ‘It’s Your Thing’. Santana’s Latin music has a passion all it’s own. I was only familiar with 4 of the songs, but these guys truly have a raw energy that was amazing to witness. Carlos comes across as humble, charming, and a rather spiritual gent. His wife Cindy can sure beat the hell out of a set of drums ! Santana is more than 10 men strong and the percussion rocked the house.
Rod had a surprise for us too… Billy Peek came on for ‘Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller’. As most of you know, Billy was originally asked to become a guitarist for Rod after working for Chuck Berry, and it was fun to watch Billy do the famous ‘Chuck Berry duck walk’ across the stage during this performance. I noticed Kevin Savingar watching the show from the sidelines. Most all of what followed has already been mentioned in other fan reviews…Rod introduced the ‘Faces microphone’ to us and did some twirls of days gone by giving it a kiss, and mentioning the Faces doing a ‘one off’ as being a real possibility. The outfits were as seen on previous video, the plastic chairs were assembled for the sit down session. The girls did ‘Proud Mary’, the footballs were kicked out during ‘Hot Legs’, and the balloons cascaded down on the crowd during ‘DYTIS’ . Rod apologised to us that his voice was only at 90% and he had missed a few notes. Strangely, there was no appearance at all from Ruby. I was really hoping to see a duet of ‘Forever Young’ with Rod and Ruby together, but was disappointed when he started it alone. Rod gave a fond nod and bow out to Ron Isley (who was back in his seat) towards the end of the set. Rod seemed to be in a decent mood, but not overly charming & silly as he is sometimes known to be. The date of this show was actually on the 70th anniversary of D-Day, so ‘Rythm of my Heart’ was a perfect fit. Sadly, I must report there were no songs from TIME, but it was still nice to have a sing along to the old standbys.
Review by Donna Lee Manus
Pictures by Donna Lee Manus