My husband I had the awesome privilege of seeing Sir Rod Stewart in concert, 10th row back and left of center stage, in Billings, MT on Friday, October 26, 2018. Awesome, because prior to 3:20 pm on October 25th, though I have desired to see him in concert for years, we had no tickets. For the past 10 months we have been caring for our youngest son as he has battled with repeated bouts of sickness, testing for cancer, and autoimmune disease, and just 4 days prior to the show, a surgery which we and his physicians are hopeful will mend him.
I have been a Rod Stewart fan ALL of my life. My dad loved to play his music loud in the house to dance, and in the car to sing, and our favorite together song of Rod’s was The Rhythm of MY Heart, which was released the year I lived with my dad at the beach. I cannot hear The Rhythm of My Heart without visualizing my dad’s face, and the ocean at sunset. I have listened to, and loved everything Sir Rod put out since he began singing, and especially loving his American Songbooks as an adult. Sir Rod’s music, thanks to my dad, has been a soundtrack for my life.
My father’s love of Sir Rod’s music began long before Rod had the Sir title. My dad lived in Scotland in the early 1970’s, where he worked on the oil rigs in the North Sea to support his wife in the pursuit of her doctoral degree. Sailing was my dad’s favorite song, and it and Otis Redding’s Dock of the Bay were my dad’s only requests that we play at his funeral in 2013 when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. My dad would have turned 70 this month, October, 2018.
I went to the concert knowing three things. 1. I was going to sing all the words to EVERY song while my husband stood there with a smile. 2. I had a wish that Sir Rod would play the two songs mentioned above, and 3. I would cry, and I would enjoy, and I would remember my dad. He would have loved this show.
Sir Rod did not disappoint. He is ever the performer, and though he was nursing a broken foot (and sometimes visibly was in pain), ever the performer he remained. The show was sensational! Sir Rod sounds in concert, I would daresay, better than all of the recordings I have heard, and he has surrounded himself with musicians and singers who can absolutely put on a show and entertain. A couple of songs in to the set he played The Rhythm of my Heart, and I sang, cried and remembered, and we were rewarded with seeing video of Sir Rod’s knighting ceremony. Throughout the show we were continually wowed with costume changes, drum and saxophone solos, Sir Rod throwing and kicking out signed soccer balls during Hot Legs, a raining down of balloons to create a big party during Forever Young, and a 3 song encore which began with him singing Sailing. . .
I’m crying now even as I write this because I cannot accurately put into words what seeing this show meant to me. Seeing Sir Rod in concert helped my heart. I got a much needed date night with my husband after a hard year of worry and caring for our son. I got to enjoy and sing along to music that has been the soundtrack of my 37 years on earth, and I was awarded with the amazing privilege of seeing Sir Rod in person, a peer in age to, and favorite singer of my beloved dad.
To Sir Rod I would say: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for playing the show in Billings, MT, and thank you for a lifetime of music to love and to accentuate so many precious memories!
Review By Kari Walker
Photos By Kari Walker
Montage By Tommy Kevitt