Rod Stewart review: Hot stuff from the 79-year-old despite the rain in Dublin 

Most people have dreamed at some point about being a rock star. Chances are, most weren’t fantasising about being the bass player in Shed Seven. They were thinking of someone like Rod Stewart because Mrs  Stewart’s youngest always made being a rock star look like the most sport any human has had since Caligula stopped throwing parties.

He’s still looking enviably well-preserved at 79 when he ambles on stage at about 8.15pm in front of a sea of drenched admirers on what is a very wet night in Kilmainham. There’s no two ways about it: rain detracts from these outdoor events. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as bad as the full headlights and wipers downpour that hit Dublin earlier in the day, but Rod does come out only half-jokingly pushing a mop, and mentions more than once that the stage is a bit slippy.

Still, he’s in good form as he’d witnessed his beloved Glasgow Celtic beat Rangers 1-0 in the Scottish Cup Final the day before and the crowd are admirably determined to have a good time regardless as the band open with an appropriate ‘Having A Party’.

 “I was praying it would stop,” says Rod. “But It’s not going to spoil our fun.” He then takes us through a marvellous ‘Tonight I’m Yours’ and “one we haven’t played in Dublin in ages”, ‘Hot Legs’, to prove his point.

He allows the band to take over for ‘Forever Young’ which isn’t much of a song to begin with, and gets worse as things descend into cod Riverdancisms while Rod goes off to dry his hair and change out of a surely soaked leopardskin print jacket but let’s skip past all that, and the equally questionable ‘Passion’, and get to the great stuff.

A sing-along to ‘Maggie May’ had everyone smiling as did a particularly good ‘I Don’t Wanna Talk About It’. He proved that most if not all of the voice is still there with an ‘I Would Rather Go Blind’ dedicated to Christine McVie and pulled something extra out of his pocket for a lovely ‘People Get Ready’ for old mate Jeff Beck.

 You can’t go wrong with crowd pleasers like ‘Downtown Train’ or ‘You’re In My Heart’ (with his beloved Celtic up on the big screen) and by the time he got to ‘Sailing’, after the masterstroke of singing ‘Grace’ across the road from Kilmainham Gaol, we’d almost forgotten about the weather.

To paraphrase his ridiculous/awesome disco boogie ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy’, outside it’s cold and raining but no one was complaining. Sterling work.