Ronnie Wood offers a splendid rock'n'roll concert in Barcelona

Ronnie Wood, guitarist for the Rolling Stones for fifty years, and previously with the group Faces, conveyed the feeling of doing exactly what he likes most: playing rock'n'roll in a broad sense of the word, accompanied by a group of musicians in sync and with a very well-chosen repertoire. Before he took the stage at the Razzmatazz venue in Barcelona, it is possible that the audience, who had paid 165 euros for the ticket, would have been satisfied just having a legend in front of them without asking for anything extraordinary. However, Wood turned the situation around. It only took him four songs to turn what could have been a pleasant evening with a 79-year-old veteran into a splendid concert. And the audience, who had already welcomed him with endearing affection, began to celebrate the music.

In a season without a Stones tour, the British guitarist released last year Fearless: the anthology 1965-2025, a double CD that gathers songs from different stages of his career in bands like Jeff Beck Group, Faces, and The Rolling Stones, in addition to some from his solo albums and four unreleased tracks. He chose about twenty of them to build almost two hours of concert. It's only rock'n'roll and Hey negrita, two Stones songs in whose composition he was involved, played in a first block that established some of Wood's musical interests, such as Jamaican rocksteady (the version of Take it easy by Hopeton Lewis), soul with a rhythm'n'blues accent and harmonica (Am i grooving you, by Freddie Scott) and Bob Dylan, whose Seven days he performed, a version he included on the solo album Gimme some neck (1979) and which he sings imitating the nasal Dylanesque accent. The audience, which did not fill the venue, responded with football-style chants, "oe, oe, oe, Ronnie," and the British musician gave a very wide smile of gratitude.

Yes, things were working. Good songs, good performances, and a solid, veteran band that tackled rock'n'roll with a commendable attitude: fleeing from salon-style neatness but without artificial outbursts. And it kept working. Examples, by the bucketload: an exciting Baby what you want me to do by Jimmy Reed, an emotional Oh la la by the Faces which he dedicated to Ronnie Lane (bandmate who died in 1997), the Dylan-esque Mystifies me (from the first solo album I’ve got my own, from 1974), a vibrant Boogie disease by the bluesman Doctor Ross, the apotheotic soul-rock of Stay with me also by the Faces and with which the performance ended...

Aware that he has never been a great singer, and that he has been part of groups with singers as charismatic as Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart, in some pieces he handed the microphone to Chanelle Haynes (who also takes on the role of backing vocalist) and Imelda May. Haynes sang the monumental Flying by the Faces, one of the great moments of the night, and May demonstrated why she is a great rock'n'roll and blues performer by catapulting Remember (walking in the sand) by the Shangri-las. Both shared the triple microphone with Wood on other tracks, accompanying this unexpected frontman who seemed happy and relaxed, even though he did not lose control of the situation. In Chain of fools he gestured for the drummer Andy Newmark to close the song, in Country honk he directed the violin entrances and the voices of the audience, and in a good part of the songs he alternated the guitar prominence with Johnny Lee Schell, always with generosity.

The final ovation confirmed that it had been a splendid performance, perhaps because it was unexpected, but Ronnie Wood had already conveyed it a few minutes earlier, when at the end of the Stones-esque Can't you hear me knocking he closed his fist and raised it. It was the sign of a job well done.