Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood - MTV Unplugged, Universal Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 2-5-1993 (Unplugged... and Seated)

First off, I have to say that it's very fashionable these days to knock Rod Stewart. For most of his career, there's been a conflict between his flamboyant showman side and his serious musical side. I'm not a huge Stewart fan, but I do enjoy his serious musical style, especially his heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Even after that heyday, his long career has had a lot of highlights. It's just that you have to sort through the many lowlights, especially a lot of bad production choices. One definite highlight was his appearance on MTV's "Unplugged" TV show in 1993. He released an album of this show, which he called "Unplugged... and Seated." It was a big seller.

Normally, I don't want to release an album that's publicly available, so long as it's not in need of a lot of fixing, because I don't want to take royalty money away from the artists. But in this case, the album needed a heck of a lot of fixing. The problem is what was NOT included. Stewart played 21 songs in that concert, but the original CD only included 15. A later "collector's edition" included two more. A DVD version came out with 19.

I've managed to include all 21 of the songs here, including the two totally unreleased ones, "Sweet Little Rock and Roller" and "It's All Over Now." I found "Sweet Little Rock and Roller" from a bootleg. When I first posted this, I didn't have "It's All Over Now." But within 24 hours, a person named Will sent me the missing file (which was an obscure B-side). Thanks! I immediately updated things to include it. 

Putting this together has been a serious pain in the rear. It wasn't just a matter of finding the extra songs and adding them in, because it turns out the official CD also left out nearly all of the between song banter. I had to track down the DVD version, then convert that to an audio format I could tinker with. But I couldn't just use the DVD version of the audio as my main source, because they often made drastic cuts between songs, fading out and fading back in, and missing some things. So instead, I had to copy and paste out the between song banter and fit that into what was mainly the CD version.

But there turned out to be additional complications. Both the CD and DVD versions changed the song orders. I was able to find the correct set list and reorder the songs. However, it turned out that both the CD and DVD versions manipulated the audio between the songs too. So, for instance, there might be lots of audience clapping over the start of a particular song, when another version showed the audience actually was quiet when that song began. Or some between song banter was moved to another song, since the song order was all jumbled up anyway.

Putting this together in the right order was like putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I'm glad to say that I think I've worked it all out, as best I could. I was able to use bootleg versions of portions of the concert to make sure of what went where, especially when it came to the dialogue. But there are some pieces that are still missing. For instance, It seems that Stewart talked between every song. But a few of those talking bits weren't included on the DVD, and I wasn't able to get them from bootleg versions either. Still, I'd guess I was able to restore at least 80 percent of the dialogue. I think it makes the concert more enjoyable, especially the warm banter between Stewart and Ronnie Wood.

The original CD was 70 minutes long. Between the extra songs and the talking, I increased the length of the album by another 35 minutes. That's why I think the difference is enough to warrant the album being posted here.

In terms of musical content, this is kind of an ideal Rod Stewart set list for me. Although the concert was far from a true simple acoustic performance, he basically ignored his cheesy late 1970s and 1980s hits and focused on his best songs. Even the newer songs he included are well chosen. And note that he's not just a talented raspy singer; he wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 20 songs here, including most of the big hits.

01 Hot Legs (Rod Stewart)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Tonight's the Night [Gonna Be Alright] (Rod Stewart)
04 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
05 Cut Across Shorty (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
06 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
07 Reason to Believe (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
08 It's All Over Now (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
09 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
10 Every Picture Tells a Story (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
11 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
12 Maggie May (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
13 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
14 talk (Rod Stewart)
15 Handbags and Gladrags (Rod Stewart)
16 talk (Rod Stewart)
17 The Killing of Georgie [Part I and II] (Rod Stewart)
18 talk (Rod Stewart)
19 Have I Told You Lately (Rod Stewart)
20 talk (Rod Stewart)
21 Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda] (Rod Stewart)
22 Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
23 The First Cut Is the Deepest (Rod Stewart)
24 talk (Rod Stewart)
25 I Was Only Joking (Rod Stewart)
26 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
27 Gasoline Alley (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
28 Highgate Shuffle (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
29 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
30 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
31 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
32 Mandolin Wind (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
33 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
34 Stay with Me (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
35 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
36 Having a Party (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)
37 talk (Rod Stewart with Ronnie Wood)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wcXDwgP3

For the album cover art, I used the exact same photo as on the cover of the "Unplugged... and Seated" CD and DVD. I also used the same font, and text colors, and all lower case style. But I made some changes too, such as enlarging the photo, writing my own text, and changing the text placement.