Rod Stewart – Absolutely Live (1982/2013) [FLAC 24bit/192kHz]

Absolutely Live is a live album by Rod Stewart, released as a double-LP in 1982. It is compiled from shows at The Los Angeles Forum, Long Beach Arena, San Diego Sports Arena, and Wembley Stadium (London).

Recorded at some of the largest auditoriums in the world, Rod Stewart’s Christmas-season cash-in, Absolutely Live, is a mostly noisy record that, in all its grand showbiz gesturing, plays to the back rows. Stewart’s entrance, to the strains of “The Stripper,” is strictly burlesque, as is the program that follows. True to that fanfare, he offers all the bump-and-grind hits from his disco playboy period and winds up stripping some of his worthiest older songs of their affecting nuances. In its best moments, Absolutely Live has a certain waggish charm — Roddy is a lovable brat, after all — though as a package, it’s far from indispensable. Like the Who, the Stones and any world-class pop entourage of longstanding, Stewart’s concert program, cues and all, is eminently predictable. It’s hard to forget that this is big-time rock, not rock & roll, and that it thrives in cavernous places where performers communicate in broad, stagey strokes to an audience able to answer only with a dull roar. For all its pleasures, the motivations are basically, and blatantly, manipulative. That’s entertainment.

Tracklist:

01 – The Stripper
02 – Tonight I’m Yours (Don’t Hurt Me)
03 – Sweet Little Rock And Roller
04 – Hot Legs
05 – Tonight’s The Night [Gonna Be Alright]
06 – The Great Pretender
07 – Passion
08 – She Won’t Dance With Me / Little Queenie
09 – You’re In My Heart [The Final Acclaim]
10 – Rock My Plimsoul
11 – Young Turks
12 – Guess I’ll Always Love You
13 – Gasoline Alley
14 – Maggie May
15 – Tear It Up
16 – Da Ya Think I’m Sexy
17 – Sailing
18 – I Don’t Want To Talk About It
19 – Stay With Me