Monday 4th May

I flew back yesterday, Sunday.  A bit of a bumpy ride as it happened; a thunderstorm over Stansted which we circled for about half an hour being occasionally buffeted around.  Got home to London about seven and cooked a pizza.  Settled down to watch the snooker and fell asleep on the sofa, woke up and it was over – never mind.

Flicking through the channels I caught an Alan Yentob special on BBC4 about Rod Stewart. It brought back fond memories.  I saw the Faces twice, once at Weeley in 1972 and a year later at the Valley, the old ground of Charlton Athletic.  Both times they were superb.  They were one of my favourite bands of the early seventies.  Rod had joined the Faces in 1970 after the Jeff Beck Group broke up, but he had also just signed a record deal with Regal Xylophone for four or five solo albums.  Seemingly unfazed by this contradiction Rod and the band simply recorded one record as the Faces and the next as Rod Stewart.  But suddenly even though the Faces were doing very well, the first B side single of Rod’s third album “Every Picture Tells A Story” was played extensively on American Radio and ‘Maggie May’ became number one on both sides of the Atlantic.  The Faces soon disintegrated and Rod sailed on alone.  The hits kept coming and even “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” couldn’t dent his popularity.  Rod is one of those artists, like Elton and McCartney that you have to admire for simply lasting so long when so many others have fallen by the wayside.

The programme was followed by Rod at the BBC, mostly out-takes from Top of the Pops.  It brought back some great memories and you have to admit he had some great hairstyles too.