(Tony Caldwell, Sun)

OTTAWA - The best thing about Rod Stewart is he's so unapologetic about being Rod Stewart.

That much was obvious during last night's looked-to-be a marathon show for 6,000 devoted, if sedate, fans out at Scotiabank Place.

There was the frosted rooster 'do, the sequined jacket, the black shirt unbuttoned just so, the flashy medallions and eye-popping diamond bracelet. (Oh, and several costume changes, at least one offering some tight jeans.) The non-sensical dance moves -- how does a man with music in his bones move so awkwardly to his own, anyway? -- and self-mocking behaviour. A short video, done up like a movie trailer, dubbed him "The Rodfather" and joked that long ago the soccer-enthusiast had to choose between "a life of kicking balls and kicking ass." Then there are the corny, grandfatherly jokes.

"You can beat an egg and you can beat a carpet," said Stewart, a short while after rising up from the centre of the stage to hoots of delight from his baby-boomer fan base, "but you can't beat Friday night."

At 62, Stewart's just doing what he does. A small crowd rushed up to slap his hand every time he ventured onto walkways on either side of the stage. They clapped along as he performed everything from the studly Infatuation to 1988's Lost in You. Even campy tunes like Hot Legs, from the album that made him very famous, 1977's Foot Loose and Fancy Free, seemed to make sense.

At press time Stewart had settled in nicely after more than an hour on-stage, having promised fans their money's worth from a career that reaches back into the 1960s.

"Thank you so much for coming out on such an Antarctic sort of evening," he said. "It will definitely be worth your while. It will warm the cockles of your heart."

With a nattily dressed nine-piece band and a trio of sexy backup singers, the husky voiced Stewart cruised through his catalogue of dozens of hits. Backing him was a rich tapestry of instruments, guitars and drums filled in with fiddles and mandolins. Veering through the decades, Stewart matter-of-factly performed his own songs and covers, something that has brought him great success in this decade with his American Songbook series and last year's nod to rock classics.

Stewart was best on his touching ballads, like 1971's Reason to Believe from his first album, Every Picture Tells a Story, and covering others' songs, like The Temptations' (I Know) I'm Losing You.

Touching moments came when he sang Cat Stevens' Father and Son to a video and photo montage of his own family. And what a family it is: His own parents and several of the seven children he's had with five girlfriends, the latest a toddler born in 2005.

It was all a lot more meat and potatoes than bells and whistles, quite lovely, as Stewart himself might say, a well-crafted night provided by one of the century's most prolific entertainers.