Arts

Rod Stewart announces 2023 tour and special guest Cyndi Lauper for final Aussie hurrah

By Rebecca Wilson

Posted on February 7, 2023

Sir Rod Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, and acclaimed rock singer Jon Stevens will be performing in Adelaide’s AEC Arena on Tuesday 21 March 2023.

Sir Rod Stewart has announced he’s hitting the road in 2023 on a massive Australian Tour with support from very special guest Cyndi Lauper. The string of headline shows will be Rod’s last hurrah Down Under, the of which will be kicking off in Perth on Saturday 11 March 2023.

Alongside Perth, the 77-year-old musician will also be making his way to Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide, Mount Cotton, Sydney, Hunter Valley, and the Centennial Vineyards in Bowral.

Sir Rod Stewart will perform a massive 2 hour set from his vast catalogue of hits, whilst Cyndi Lauper will take the stage for an hour playing all of her most loved songs. Opening for all shows on the tour is acclaimed rock singer Jon Stevens.

When commenting on the announcement, Rod said it will be the last time he brings a rock show to Australia but “we have all waited long enough” and he will “savour it”.

Rod Stewart will be performing with a 12-person band, all of whom are “fabulous musicians, dancers and singers”. Rod went on to tell the media that the shows are going to be “absolutely fantastic” and has more energy now than the last time he was here.

The rescheduled tour (and brand new guest!) comes as a relief to many adoring fans who bought tickets to his cancelled 2022 tour. Stewart was to perform headline concerts in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Hunter Valley as well as appear at four a day on the green events this year, but a surge in COVID led to its cancellation.

For Adelaide fans, this is a blessing in disguise, because now our great state is included in the line-up.

General public tickets went on sale on November 17.

Following the extraordinary success of his previous tours, Sir Rod Stewart’s 2023 dates promise show-stopping classics and new hits in his unmissable, captivating style. He is one of the best-selling artists in the history of recorded music, with an estimated 250 million records and singles sold worldwide; his performance will include fan favourites from across his impressive career, as well as the first live performances of tracks from his current album THE TEARS OF HERCULES.

Sir Rod Stewart has been lauded as the finest singer of his generation; he’s written several songs that have turned into modern standards, earned many of the industry’s highest awards, among them, two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ASCAP Founders Award for songwriting, Grammy™ Living Legend, and is a New York Times bestselling author. In 2016 he was knighted by Prince William at Buckingham Palace for his services to music and charity.

Sir Rod Stewart’s rekindled love of songwriting grows stronger on his 31st studio album, THE TEARS OF HERCULES. It is Stewart’s fourth new album of original songs since 2013 when he reconnected with his songwriting muse to record Time, the chart-topping album which entered the Top 10 in the US and ten countries worldwide, including #1 in the U.K., where it’s been certified double platinum. For his latest, Stewart wrote nine of the album’s 12 songs, including the first single, “One More Time”.

Lauper is a ground-breaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist with global record sales in excess of 50 million. Her iconic voice, influential punk glamor, and infectious live shows have catapulted her to stardom. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, She’s So Unusual, and became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album. Since then, Lauper has released ten additional studio albums, yielding timeless classics like “Time After Time” and “True Colors,” and the anthemic “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” She has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, seven American Video Awards, and 18 MTV Awards. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first solo woman to win Best Original Score (music and lyrics) for Kinky Boots.

Jon Stevens is a member of that exclusive club: the Kiwis who are so successful and talented, we claim them as our own! As front man of Noiseworks, he was part of four Top 10 albums and 12 Top 50 singles, including the classics No Lies, Take Me Back, Touch and Hot Chilli Woman. He then fronted INXS for more than three years, which included a gig at the Sydney Olympics’ closing ceremony. Stevens grew up listening to Sir Rod Stewart, and his 2011 album Testify! included a cover of Open To Ideas, co-written by Rod Stewart and one of the last songs the Faces recorded.

ROD STEWART
With special guest Cyndi Lauper and Jon Stevens

AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2023