Text: STORYTELLER/TheGuardian.com

The Munich radio station Bayern1 has come up with a very special campaign and is giving away concert tickets for the Rod Stewart concert in the Olympic Hall on 7 December 2025.Under the motto ‘The star is calling!’, the station is encouraging fans to sing along live on the radio and secure tickets for the almost sold-out show. And this is how it works: Give Bayern1 your telephone number. With a bit of luck, your phone will ring and the ‘star is calling’. If you switch quickly and sing along live on the phone, you win two tickets for Munich. In addition to tickets for Rod Stewart's Munich concert, you can also win tickets for performances by Kim Wilde, Sting, Lionel Richie and Simply Red in the Bavarian capital.

Text: STORYTELLER/MH & lucywoodward.com

The concert year 2025 has some highlights in store for all Rod Stewart fans. Sir Rod is playing a total of seven concerts in May and November/December in Dortmund, Bremen (May), Hamburg, Leipzig, Mannheim (all at the end of November), Cologne and Munich (both in December). But what to do in the long time between the two tour phases? What's the best way to bridge the month-long wait between the gigs in Bremen on 4 May and Hamburg on 25 November?We might have a tip for you. Katja Rieckermann, long-time saxophonist in Rod's band, is coming to Germany for an exclusive show in September.On 12 September, the musician and her band will be making a guest appearance at Rider's Café in Lübeck. Katja will mainly be performing her own songs on this evening, but will also include a few cover songs. And there will certainly be a hit or two from Rod Stewart's huge song repertoire. The North German already performed at Rider's two years ago - due to the great demand at the time, it has now been agreed to stage a new edition.Tickets for the exclusive event in Lübeck are now available from Eventim.

The wait is over - Rod Stewart is back on stage tonight. After a four-week break from touring, the 80-year-old singer continues the concert programme today at the Zalgirio Arena in Kaunas.Starting at 8 pm, Stewart, who landed in the Lithuanian metropolis shortly after 6 pm yesterday evening, will perform his hits from six decades and thrill the audience for two hours.There are still a few tickets left at the box office for last-minute bookers, but the organiser assumes that the show will be almost sold out. The arena, which is mainly used as an arena for basketball matches, can accommodate around 20,000 people for concerts.From Kaunas, the Stewart entourage will travel on to Finland, with Tampere being the next stop on the singer's tour calendar on 25 April. Further shows will then take Sir Rod to Norway, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Portugal.

Sir Rod Stewart took to social media today (Tuesday) to pay tribute to Pope Francis, who passed away on Easter Monday, in a post on Instagram, Facebook & Co.'A man of the people and the greatest Pope of all time,’ wrote the singer, posting a picture of an Irish flag with the Pope's face on it. His wife Penny posted a picture of the couple with the head of the Roman Catholic Church on her Instagram account, which was taken in Rome in 2017. She wrote: ‘A really special moment when I met Pope Francis in Rome 7 years ago’. Rod Stewart and his wife Penny had met the pontiff seven years ago at an audience in St Peter's Square and were able to exchange a few words with him. Pope Francis had only been discharged from hospital a few days ago after suffering from severe pneumonia. On Sunday, he gave the Easter blessing ‘Urbi et orbi’ in St Peter's Square. On Monday morning, he died of a stroke.

Penny's stadium ban: Sir Rod had to stay at home

Watch out! Rod Stewart is releasing a second biography in November. The new work SECOND MEMOIR is primarily about Rod's great hobby, model railroading. Grand Central Publishing, which has now officially announced the book, writes: Sir Rod Stewart's love of trains began when he was growing up next to the railroad tracks in north London and has remained a constant since his early years. For 30 years, the multi-platinum selling artist has spent hours every day - whether at home or on tour - building and painting tiny trains, buildings and more from scratch and incorporating them into an incredibly impressive, ever-growing model railroad.Rod began using the tiny mid-20th century American city as an artistic outlet in the early 1990s, and the now 1,674-square-foot model has taken on a hugely important role in his life. Inside each building he built is the year it was built, where he was when it was built and how the Celtics were doing. Basically, it has become a diary and a map of his life. There are buildings named after his children, family members, friends and band members, and all the interests and loves of his life. In his new memoir, Rod takes readers on an exciting journey through his life, his career and, of course, the convoluted Grand Street & Three Rivers Railroad.

As officially confirmed today, Rod Stewart will perform at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on 17 December 2025 and present all his hits from six decades to the audience in the United Arab Emirates.

Rod fans in Germany, watch out! Sir Rod's former saxophonist Katja Rieckermann is coming to Germany for a concert on 12 September.

At the moment, Sir Rod Stewart is still enjoying his well-deserved break from touring. After his acclaimed performances recently in Las Vegas, the singer took some time out to spend with his family.But in just ten days, the 80-year-old will be back on stage - the next stop on this year's concert tour will take the Maggie May singer's entourage to Lithuania on 23 April. Sir Rod will be performing in Kaunas at the Zalgirio Arena. We take a closer look at the city and the arena.With a population of more than 311,000, Kaunas is the second largest city in Lithuania after the capital Vilnius. In addition to a diversified economy favoured by the city's traffic situation, Kaunas is home to several universities and many galleries. Textile art in particular, which has its roots in the traditionally important textile industry, is strongly represented in the city, which is also reflected in the large, now internationally recognised Kaunas Textile Art Biennale. The city was the European Capital of Culture in 2022, together with Esch an der Alzette in Luxembourg and Novi Sad in Serbia.Kaunas is the country's central transport hub. Running from south to north, the so-called ‘Via Baltica’ (European route 67), which runs from Warsaw via Riga and Tallinn to Helsinki, meets the main west-east route, the motorway from Klaipėda to Vilnius, which continues via Minsk to Moscow.The cultural highlight of every year is the Kaunas Jazz Festival, which has regularly attracted national and international jazz greats in April since 1991 and brings a touch of New Orleans to the city. Among others, the internationally renowned jazz musicians Marc Copland and Charlie Hunter have performed at the ‘Kaunas Jazz’. The Zalgirio Arena is also considered the cultural centre of the city. The multi-purpose hall, where Sir Rod will wow the audience in just over a week's time, was completed in 2011 after three years of construction and opened shortly before the start of the European Basketball Championships. The Zalgirio Arena hosted all the games of the European Championship finals. In 2018, several games of the Ice Hockey World Championships took place here and in 2023, the European Figure Skating Championships were held there.In addition to sporting events, the Zalgirio Arena also hosts numerous concerts. Chris Norman and Elton John have already performed there. And now Sir Rod is also performing. Tickets are still available in all categories for the Brit's one last-time show on 23 April. Ticket prices range from 85 to 198 euros. Around 15,000 visitors are expected; the arena has a maximum capacity of 20,000 for concerts.

Do you know Martin Quittenton? Or rather, did you know him? Martin Quittenton died on 16 April 2015, almost exactly ten years ago. The Brit was a musician, more precisely a guitarist and composer, and also a founding member of the blues-rock band Steamhammer. He left the band in 1969 and joined Rod Stewart's studio band. In the following years, he was instrumental in the creation of the Stewart albums An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (1969), Gasoline Alley (1970), Every Picture Tells A Story (1971), Never A Dull Moment (1972) and Smiler (1974). Quittenton achieved particular fame as co-author of the songs Maggie May and You Wear It Well. Maggie May was Rod Stewart's big breakthrough, and You Wear It Well is still one of Rod Stewart's great classics and can still be found on the singer's concert set lists today. Stewart also saw the guitarist as a suitable member for the Faces and invited him to join the band. But the musician was not so fond of the Faces' often dubious reputation away from the stage and thankfully declined. Quittenton retired from the music business in the mid-1970s and lived in Wales until his death in 2015.