Spin D Music - Entertainment News

Rod Stewart rocks Plymouth, Whitney Houston Disappoints

Port of Spain, Trinidad: April 29th 2008
Source: newsday.co.tt

ROD STEWART rocked the house at the Plymouth Jazz Festival and Tobago is still feeling the reverberations from the hour-long rock 'n roll session on Sunday night, the final and biggest night of the three-day festival.

After a disappointing, near heartbreaking session from Whitney Houston where the singer performed for a mere half hour and seemed unable to hit the high notes and range for which she became famous, the 63-year-old Stewart showed that he still had the spunk, energy and talent of any twenty-something performer.

As he opened his performance shortly after 8 pm with "Nothing But a Heartache" Stewart brought out the glitz and glamour of a truly professional star who knows how to put on a good show.

The crowd, recognising that something special was about to happen, surged to their feet and stayed there for the entire hour-long session, singing along with the hits and cheering for every outstanding moment in the show - of which there were many.

Dressed in a silver jacket and skinny tie, Stewart engaged the audience in his performance, pausing every now and then to hear them sing some of his lines in a massive chorus of love. When he sang his hit "Hot Legs" he kicked footballs into the audience - the star is known for his love of football. Audience members roared with approval at his amazing right kick which, powerful though it was, did mean that most of the balls went to the audience to the left of him.

The man known for his love of the ladies was amply backed up by several of them including back-up singers who showed amazing range as he let them have their moment in the spotlight with a performance of James Brown's "Proud Mary" (Rolling Down the River). Many said that the women put Whitney to shame with their range.

Also rocking the night with him was a sexy blonde saxophonist and a female violinist who also did duty on the guitar and as a back-up singer, showing the versatility of the people that Stewart has working with him.

Amongst other hits performed for the night were "Downtown Train", "Sailing", "Tonight's the Night", "Maggie May", "The First Cut is the Deepest", "Have I Told You Lately", "Young Hearts" and his closing song, perhaps his signature song, "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy".

Rod Stewart showed himself to be the absolute professional who knows how to put on a good, no, a grand, show for his audience. At the end they were left calling for more, though this was not to be.

Unlike Friday night when most of the audience left before the local act could come on, several thousand stayed to hear Imij and Co perform in the closing session and they were not disappointed as the group showed off its range outside of the soca arena with hits from local (Sayamanda) to international (Dancing Queen and more). However, if anyone had a triumphant night amongst the local acts it was 20-year-old Princess Adana, Tobago's 2008 Soca Monarch winner. As the first act of the evening she faced an enormous challenge of trying to woo a crowd that had not yet warmed up enough - or drunk enough - to get into the groove.

But if anyone thought this young lady could not do it, she proved them wrong as by the end of her performance she had much of the early crowd on their feet, singing and dancing along with her. It helped that she had a lovely deep, rich voice and that she sang an amazing range of hits from Cher to Lionel Richie to Abba to Madonna. It was an amazing performance from such a young woman and it showed that she is definitely going places.

Also performing for the night were the duo of 2 Ntrigue and once again the Woodbrook Angostura Playboyz put down an outstanding performance for the early crowd.