One Last Time in Sweden: Malmö have a hard time saying goodbye

Let's call it never change a working setlist, based on a saying from the world of sport. Sir Rod Stewart also remembered this motto at his One Last Time Tour concert in Malmö on Tuesday.The singer only made minor adjustments to the song list for last night's show compared to the performance in Tampere. The Faces song Ooh La La came in, This Old Heart of Mine had to ‘take a seat on the substitutes' bench’. And Lady Marmelade replaced the Pointer Sisters hit I'm So Excited among the ‘interval fillers’. Around 15,000 visitors were looking forward to an unforgettable evening, which kicked off with the Depeche Mode classic (and Celtic Stadium song) and a bagpipe intro by Scotland The Brave.The curtain then rose to the sounds of Infatuation and ‘the good times could roll’. Tonight I'm Yours, Some Guys Have All The Luck - the audience in Sweden's third largest city after Stockholm and Gothenburg quickly warmed up and the party picked up speed.‘An emotional ’The first cut is the deepest‘ is one of the highlights of the evening,’ noted the Swedish online news portal Sydsvenska, drawing a somewhat macabre comparison. ‘When Elvis was this age, he had already been dead for 38 years,’ commented the paper. ‘Rod Stewart still has this unique vitality at the age of 80.’Well, very few visitors to the show in Malmö were probably thinking along these lines, enjoying the evening first and foremost and experiencing a man on stage who didn't always hit the right note, but this is probably not entirely unknown to long-time Rod Stewart fans. The Celtic fan ironed out these little slip-ups with his energy, his tongue-in-cheek humour (‘I fucked it up...’) and his unbelievable stage presence, also repeatedly in interaction with his excellent musicians. In general, one of the greatest music legends of the last few decades simply celebrated a big party here, which would be very fitting for the motto Forever Young. I'd Rather Go Blind once again became the secret star of the evening, with Rod performing the Etta James song with such emotion that ‘you could hear every sigh and every note’, according to Sydsvenska. At the end, he aptly summarised: ‘The last cut is sometimes the deepest’, which is probably how the 15,000 people felt when the curtain fell for the last time after the two encores Stay With Me and Hot Legs and they realised that a music legend had just left the Land of the Three Crowns at that moment.

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Another Tampere Review (by Veikka Putkisaari)

Rod Stewart served up a breathtaking selection of legendary songs. At the same time, he showed that he is still in as good a shape as he was on his last visit to Finland in 1998. The concert got off to a lively start with the song Infatuation. The curtain went up and the audience in the Nokia Arena rose respectfully. The audience was then treated to a series of 80s hits as Tonight I'm Yours (Don't Hurt Me), Some Guys Have All the Luck and This Old Heart of Mine followed each other and took over the arena. Throughout the concert, the audience was fuelled by Rod's lively remarks, such as: "Enjoy yourselves, we're going to play the best songs all night! Have fun, guys, have fun!" When ‘Young Turks’ ended and Rod launched into his biggest hit ‘Maggie May’, even the usually reserved Finns stood up and sang along.

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Return after 27 years: Rod Stewart wraps Tampere around his finger

For Sir Rod Stewart, it was only the third concert in Finland in his long career and the first in over 27 years. The Brit had previously performed in Helsinki in 1976 and 1998.In the packed Nokia Arena, the singer showed that even at an advanced age, he is still the best guarantee for great hits and the best music entertainment. The 80-year-old entered the arena stage at 8pm sharp in a good mood, with the audience eagerly awaiting the start of the show. And Rod really got going, belting out four songs to the fans right at the start that got even the very last dance-averse in the audience off their seats: Infatuation, Tonight I'm Yours, Some Guys and This Old Heart Of Mine - Sir Rod didn't allow himself or the audience a single moment to catch their breath. But the Brit knew that his fans also love his sensitive ballads, so he added the two 1970s classics The First Cut is The Deepest and Tonight's The Night. The fans indulged in old, decades-old memories, couples cuddled in thoughts of times long gone, others sang along to the songs at the top of their voices.

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Rod Stewart tore the place down: Kaunas celebrates an unforgettable evening

Sir Rod Stewart once again provided an unforgettable evening at the start of his 2025 European tour. A visibly cheerful singer took to the stage punctually at 8 pm to thunderous applause from the audience. ‘Kaunas, we have 23 songs for you today. I hope you enjoy the evening as much as we do,’ the 80-year-old called out to the almost 20,000 fans.And it didn't take long for Stewart to really get the audience in the arena fired up. With Infatuation, Tonight I'm Yours and Some Guys Have All The Luck, Stewart and his band really got the audience going and the man on stage didn't miss out on any of his numerous hits from the last few decades. I'd Rather Go Blind, Forever Young, Downtown Train, First Cut Is The Deepest, Tonight's The Night, It Takes Two and others found their place on the setlist, as did You're In My Heart, I Don't Want To Talk About It and Sailing. After around two hours, Sir Rod bid his fans an enthusiastic farewell with the Faces hit Stay With Me. The online news portal 15min wrote afterwards very aptly of an ‘unforgettable evening’ and stated that Sir Rod, at the age of 80, ‘really tore the place down’. The conclusion was that ‘real rock knows no age limits’.The internet portal Kaunas Kasvyksta went one step further, saying that Sir Rod had turned the arena into ‘a rock'n'roll sanctuary’. ‘His energy, charm and timeless voice created an unforgettable evening for thousands of fans’. The Stewart entourage flies on to Finland today, where the concert in Tampere is on the tour programme tomorrow evening.

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Rod Stewart in a double pack: four-hour party on two evenings at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood

How lucky a singer must be to be able to easily draw on his vast repertoire of songs to thrill his audience two nights in a row. Sir Rod Stewart could probably be on stage non-stop for a whole week and still not have played all the songs from his long list of hits spanning six decades. At Hard Rock Live in Florida, the Brit therefore limited himself to his great classics at both gigs last weekend. And Sir Rod mixed up the setlists a little on both evenings.

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