Rod Stewart, 73, and Penny Lancaster, 47, join sister Mary and daughter Renee on family outing

 

He is now the hands-on father with all eight of his children.

And Rod Stewart, 73, joined his beautiful wife Penny Lancaster, 43, sister Mary and one of his daughters Renée, 25, at the BFI Southbank, in London on Saturday.

The spectacular showbiz family cuddled up together for the sweet family snap, showing their close relationships with each other.They enjoyed a screening of BBC archive 1976 film Rod The Mod, following the rocker and his then-girlfriend Britt Ekland to Europe.
 

Rod and Penny were practically inseparable from one another, leaning towards each other, as they looked loved-up on arrival at the swanky London venue.

The cosy couple, who tied the knot in 2007 in Italy's Portofino, enjoyed the evening off parenting duties to their two young children Alastair, 12, and Aiden, seven.

Penny showcased her best assets — her astounding legs — in her raunchy PVC skirt which she stylishly teamed with nude high heels. 

Meanwhile, Rod dressed to impress in a white blazer and unusual shirt which had a wild tiger embroidered on the collar of the jacket.  

The musician's daughter Renée teased a glimpse of her toned tummy thanks to her sexy tie front crop top, worn with her wide-legged plaid trousers.

Renée was born from Rod's 1990-2006 marriage to Australian model Rachel Hunter, 48, with her brother Liam, 23.

The Maggie May hitmaker, however, was first married to Alan Hamilton whom he has 37-year-old Sean and 38-year-old Kimberly with.

Rod's first child Sarah Streeter, 55 and raised by adoptive parents, was born during the rocker's twenties with art student Susannah Boffey.

The musician also raises daughter Ruby, 30, with 57-year-old model ex-girlfriend Kelly Emberg.

73-year-old Rod Stewart lands his time machine in Edmonton

Any number of moments at Rod Stewart’s Friday night concert could poke out from beneath the leopard print as a favourite. One example, the Royally-knighted singer comically slapping his plastic stool as if resentful, at 73, that he needed to sit down now and then.

Or perhaps one might focus on four and a half business-glam costume changes where Stewart ended up in a ratty flattened cowboy hat for the finale.

Maybe for some it was the singer’s impressively-long kicks of 20 soccer balls into the Rogers Place layer cake, which was followed by dropping balloons both great and small, floating by like luminous, colourful hippos the Boomer crowd punched ecstatically to the tune of one of the best disco songs ever, live.

And of course, there was that familiar music: hits within whirlpools of AM radio hits going back to the Faces, Muddy Waters and a long-ago street-busking folksinger trying to find his voice around the edges of Sam Cooke. Tonight was certainly going to be a guaranteed trip on the time machine, but of what sort? How much schlock?

For essentially my entire life I had a laser-focused memory of a couple photos my dad took of Stewart at the Coliseum back in April 1979, the helmet-haired singer in a shimmering silk pyjama pantsuit — the first moment I ever seriously considered somebody world famous whose work I knew and liked might come to town.

Yet this is somehow the first time I’ve ever seen Stewart play, and was cynically braced for some Diva-ish, soundtracky, Celt-o-rama under his origami hair. Surely he’d have long ago moved on from the bare-chested first disc of the Essential Collection?

But opening with the three punch of Infatuation, Young Turks and Some Guys Have All the Luck proved fast what a crowd-pleaser night somewhere around 12,000 of us would get to dig into. This was not a night for tin whistles or singing with holograms.

We were rooted before it even began, with the fiercely analogue Clan MacNaughton Pipes & Drums of Edmonton playing everything but Amazing Grace like a giant clicking and wailing caterpillar through the seats.

A stage-wide checkerboard shower curtain first revealed the excellent band, five standard players wearing the same pattern, then three backup singers emerged, then a pair of fiddlers all moving around a checkerboard stage — this had an interesting American ’50s vibe, considering Stewart’s work kicked off the next decade, across the pond. And there was something clever about that displacement, not going for the obvious, but more of an Elvis-era vibe.

Stewart, was a cheerful, active showman: a little Dudley Moore, a pinch of Fred Astair, a wink of Simon Le Bon — even dropping a pair of f-bombs as he said, “One more slow one and then we’ll all go f—ing mad on a Friday night!

“You can beat and egg,” he continued on the theme, “you can beat a carpet — but you can’t beat a Friday night.” 

Getting to the music, his new song Love Is is kind of an Irish hot country number, sizzling fiddles, while the band jazzed up the Faces’ Ooh La La. The cover of Hambone Willie Newbern’s Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Muddy Waters made famous was ferocious electric blues a la R.L. Burnside, flapper tasselled dresses whipping around like dangerous lightning bolts.

Violin player J’Anna Jacoby, saxman Jimmy Roberts, harpist Julia Thornton and the Proud Mary-belting Di Reed all stood out, but everyone really was on.

Plenty of predictable hits drove the show. Tom Waits’ Downtown Train had a beautiful animation of a city on the eight big screens hanging above, Stewart wailing. And Forever Young of all songs was probably the most generally appreciated number of the evening, which the band played beneath fertile nature scenes, turning off into a three-way percussion trio as Stewart vanished and changed costumes. Rhythm of My Heart was similarly lapped up, which the singer dedicated to the military, noting he had it lucky being born just after the Second World War as the dust settled into our next set of global problems.

1977’s You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim) was the one that really got me … but of course these things are subjective as all hell, so your lighter-to-the-sky peak might have been The First Cut Is the Deepest or People Get Ready, which he threw out to MLK, assassinated 50 years ago this week.

It was a pleasantly chill night, really, Stewart disappearing a few times, or sitting with the band in a row of those aforementioned chairs, urging us to do the same as we’d spent a lot of money for them. Noting his voice was having “a bit of trouble” because it’s so dry here, or that his Fitbit “says I should have died about half an hour ago,” Stay With Me was nonetheless very caffeinated and vibrant — and Maggie May was the biggest singalong in a night of them.

The shower curtain rose and fell a couple times to summon the encores. First up, the balloon-gasm, disco freakout of Do Ya Think I’m Sexy was the night’s money shot, and then — hint hint — a number of departing forms of transportation backdropped the finale, Sailing. 

Very nice show overall from an at-ease gentleman who, while no longer sporting the pink pyjamas, smuggled something really lovely from the idealized and freewheeling past into our brittle present.

Stewart hits familiar notes in crowd-pleasing Saskatoon stop

British pop legend Rod Stewart will stop at nothing to entertain.

He proved that repeatedly Wednesday night in front of a near-capacity crowd at SaskTel Centre, the 73-year-old’s first concert in Saskatoon in 13 years.

He kicked soccer balls into the crowd — with the lights turned on, no doubt for safety — but scarcely missed a beat singing his 1971 hit Stay With Me from his old band, Faces.

Balloons, including a few giants, dropped from the rafters while he sang the first of two songs in his encore, his 1978 signature tune, Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

The songs may have been predictable, with his surefire mix of original classics and covers he has made his own, but the presentation wasn’t.

You name it and Stewart’s show in Saskatoon had it, from duelling fiddles to solos on saxes, harps and three sets of drums. There’s even a short tap dancing stint, but not by Stewart.

Stewart knows what he is at this stage of his storied career and that’s a crooner. He never even dons a guitar for show in an hour and 40 minutes on stage.

He wisely and effectively leaves the musicianship to his capable backup band and singers of mostly American women.

Stewart enjoys the spotlight and never takes himself too seriously.

After his first of three costume changes from a leopard print blazer with track pants to a paint splatter suit, he acknowledges the flashy outfit: “I know I should know better, but I can’t resist.”

He never treats his material with too much reverence either. He knows what the audience came to hear, but isn’t shy about breaking up his 1988 pleaser Forever Young with a banjo and drum solo.

Some songs seemed a little overdone. Stewart’s voice, which still seemed solid though not quite as raspy as in his prime, got lost at times during Some Guys Have All the Luck.

His vocals stood out, though, on Downtown Train, The First Cut is the Deepest and Maggie May. The first two of these songs reveal the extent to which Stewart makes others’ songs his own. Downtown Train is a 1985 Tom Waits tune and First Cut was written by Cat Stevens in 1965.

He gave his voice a break repeatedly, too, as an eager audience more than willingly belted out the lyrics.

Many of Stewart’s hits focus on youth, Young Turks, for example, but he still has enough pep and energy to keep the irony from overwhelming.

On Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, Stewart strutted around the stage in a cowboy hat, but wisely let his female backup singers do most of the shaking.

Stewart grabbed every opportunity for applause, dedicating songs to Chuck Berry, Martin Luther King, on the 50th anniversary of his assassination, and, of course, the troops.

Pandering? Perhaps, but Stewart’s career has been about giving the people what they want and his Saskatoon show did just that.

Downtown reign

Legendary rocker Rod Stewart proves he's forever young at Bell MTS Place

The last time iconic British singer Rod Stewart — or Sir Rod Stewart as of 2016 — was in Winnipeg, it was August 2014 and he came through town on tour with Carlos Santana.

And while the pair of legends aren’t on the road together this time, nearly four years later, Stewart hit the Bell MTS Place Tuesday night three weeks after his former tourmate.

At 7 p.m. on the nose, the lights lowered and the checkerboard curtain lifted to reveal a checkerboard stage with a band in checkerboard suit jackets playing checkboard instruments (you sense the theme, I’m sure). After a brief band-only intro, Stewart danced his way to centre stage clad in a leopard-print blazer with a black sequined top underneath, sneakers and his now signature black stovepipe trousers.

Stewart, 73, kicked off his set with 1984’s Infatuation — an unsurprisingly retro choice given the decor and the average age of his fanbase.

It’s been said about Stewart a million times over, but he really is a force on stage; from the moment he stepped into the spotlight, he was incredibly energetic, cracking out some herky-jerky dance moves and gyrations as he strutted his way from corner to corner, and his confidence, which could easily skew toward arrogance, comes off as playful instead.

"Shut up, I’m talking," he instructed a particularly boisterous fan as he explained how he came to be knighted in 2016 — there are only a few artists who can have that type of banter come off as anything but rude; with Stewart, it’s just part of his sassy charm.

"Our intention is to send you home warm and happy," he said during his first audience chat of the night, launching into his cover of Some Guys Have All The Luck by the Persuaders.

Vocally, Stewart seemed to find his sweet spot after the first six songs or so, around the time he crooned his way through Tonight’s The Night. His permanent rasp sounding as good on the track as it did 40 years ago. He ended the song with a quirky shrug, yelling, "How’d you like that?!" to an already roaring crowd.

The setlist wasn’t just a greatest hits marathon, however; Stewart also pepperd in a few newer tracks, including Love Is from his most recent release, Another Country, though he quickly jumped back into more familiar waters with Forever Young.

Similar to his last show in Winnipeg, he ducked out during the song while a three-person, multiple-minute drum solo commenced on stage, followed by a violin/Celtic dance solo by five female kilt-clad singers and musicians. He returned to finish the song in a retro military jacket (think Sgt. Pepper) — the second of four wardrobe changes — before doing some band member introductions.

Stewart’s band is definitely deserving of some praise — as with most touring productions of this size and calibre, the musicians and singers were flawless and did a noticeably excellent job without overshadowing the man of the hour. And when they were given a moment to shine — such as the sax solo or cover of Proud Mary that came while Stewart left the stage for the second and third time — it was deliciously good.

Though Stewart’s voice did struggle earlier in the set — Young Turks was particularly rocky — by the time he got to the stripped-down portion of the night mid-way through, he was in fine form ("It’s all real music up here," he said, wagging his finger. "There’s no f—-ing miming!"). He was emotive on The First Cut is the Deepest, which included a stunningly lush harp solo; Have I Told You Lately was tender and did the Van Morrison original justice.