Rod Stewart, now 81, has canceled the remaining dates on his farewell tour after a heart operation to insert a stent in a cardiac artery. His announcement said the shows were not postponed but canceled, so it might be that Sir Rod has given his last concert.
This isn’t a total surprise. Back in June he had to pause a concert in Utah when he nearly fainted. His crew brought him an oxygen tank and he finished the rest of the show from a chair. The first song he sang after resuming was “Rhythm of My Heart,” his 1991 hit (No. 5 US, No. 3 UK) based on the old Scottish air “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.”
“Loch Lomond” dates to Bonnie Price Charlie’s Jacobite uprising of 1745, but folklorists have found several earlier songs with similar melodies.
Stewart’s last show was Aug. 7 at the Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, Conn. His final encore was the O’Jays classic “Love Train,” a song he covered on his 2009 album “Soulbook.”
