Rod Stewart - vocals; Carmine Appice - drums, vocals; Phil Chen - bass, vocals; Jim Cregan - guitar, vocals; Kevin Savigar - keyboards; Gary Grainger - guitar; Phil Kenzie - horns; Billy Peek - guitars
Rod Stewart's 1978 Blondes Have More Fun U.K. tour included multiple nights at the Olympia Theater in London, essentially a homecoming for Rod the Mod. This show, the second of three at this prestigious venue, was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, of which portions were used on the final aired broadcast.
Stewart opens with the raucous "Hot Legs" and offers one gem after another, going through the majority of his hits up to that point. He manages to do the show without dipping into his Faces catalog, but never makes the listener feel like they're not getting a complete Rod show. It is proof positive of why he remains one of the best performers still taking the stage today.
Stewart had a great band that included former Vanilla Fudge/Cactus drummer Carmine Appice. Appice (who co-authored "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy") had originally planned to work with Stewart when the ill-fated merger of the Fudge rhythm section with guitarist Jeff Beck Group. That project, however, fell apart in 1969 after Beck experienced a near-fatal car crash.
Many of the Stewart songs performed here are on his Greatest Hits list, including "Tonight's The Night (Gonna Be Alright)," "You're In My Heart," "I Don't Want To Talk About It," "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?," "Maggie May," and "You Wear It Well."
There are plenty of covers, including the Beatles' "Get Back," Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Rock 'N' Roller" and a vicious medley of the Temptations' "(I Know) I'm Losing You" coupled with the Four Tops' "Standing In The Shadows of Love." Stewart also does a passionate take on the 1972 soul classic, "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To be Right)." These shows climax with Stewart's version of Gavin Sutherland's "Sailing," which was a minor hit in the U.S. but remains one of Britain's largest selling singles, and the encore classic, "Twisting The Night Away," which was originally a Sam Cooke hit.
Stewart had departed from the Faces three years prior, but this show was very much still in the Faces-sounding tradition. Since most of the Faces played on the '70s-era Stewart solo albums, it is all a musical blur between his own hits and those of the band.