VETERAN rocker Rod Stewart may be just three months from his 60th birthday but he took Bournemouth by storm on Saturday night.

Looking trim and tanned he delivered an age-defying show that had the audience swaying, clapping, singing along and, after two plus hours of entertainment, begging for more. A skirl of pipes heralded Stewart's arrival on stage. Wearing a black leather jacket over a shirt emblazoned with the Celtic soccer logo he launched straight into perennial crowd pleaser Tonight I'm Yours.

Despite Scotland's 1-0 defeat at the hands of Norway that very afternoon, he seemed in remarkably good humour.

As he steamed through favourites from his back catalogue like Maggie May, Handbags and Gladrags and The First Cut Is The Deepest his band of two guitars, bass, keyboards, piano, drums and three girl backing singers was variously augmented with violin, saxophone, and percussion.

It was a heady mix that beefed up the out and out rockers like Stay With Me and added colour and dimension to ballads like Reason To Believe.

But this was a show of two halves and, after an interval, and with the strains of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance booming across the hall, the set opened up to reveal the band, booted and suited, and joined by a full string section arranged Big Band Style across the stage.

Rod, all white tie and tails, launched into numbers from the latest CD in his Great American Songbook project.

The audience loved it and fans, who earlier had been belting out the rockers, were adding their harmonies to evergreens like Blue Moon, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and They Can't Take That Away From Me.

Not only did this curious switch of style work well but Rod had another quick change up his sleeve and while his excellent vocalists sang Pennies From Heaven, he slipped backstage, returning wearing a yellow blazer and striped tie to deliver more old favourites.

By the time he got to Maggie May for the second time the audience were happy to sing it, in its entirety...on their own. This segued into more vintage gold in the form of Gasoline Alley, Sailing had a sea of arms waving in salutation leaving Rod only to neatly up the tempo for a magnificent nostalgic rock 'n' roll finale which found band and audience alike Twisting The Night Away.

A vintage gig from a man who remains one of THE great stage performers. And it was also a fine performance from the crowd many of whom had paid more than £60 each for their seats. Not that the seats got much use, fans were on their feet within moments of the show starting. Clearly impressed and beaming broadly at the adulation that greeted him, Stewart told the audience he had only intended the show to be a warm-up for his concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday.

"Never in a million years did I expect a reaction like this."

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