Editorial: This blond has way more fun

Rod Stewart. Oh yes ... he wears it well.
Forget the fact he has the number 66 pencilled in as his age for this is one bloke who appears to possess the remarkable ability to make that figure nothing more than ... just a figure.
When he stepped out onto the Mission Estate Winery stage back in the summer of 2005 the figure then stood at 61.
It might as well have been 31.
When he charged into the opening lines of You Wear It Well - clutching the microphone stand just the way he always had since fronting on vocals for the Jeff Beck Group back in 1967 - there were no figures. No ages.
Just Rod Stewart with that utterly distinctive rasping voice and equally distinctive hair.
Anyone who had seen him in the 80s or 90s would have simply brushed off the years and immediately embraced what they were seeing as "good old Rod".
Just doing the business.
Charming the crowd.
Dropping the odd expletive and geeing the band up.
Back in 2005 he was the epitome of diversity, and that is something few headline musicians can get away with without being slaughtered somewhere in the music media.
Gordon Sumner (Sting) has got away with it and displayed that rare commodity at the Mission Concert this year.
When Rod wandered off to allow the initial rocking clamour to die down, then returned in a smart suit to do a bit of high-brow stuff, the crowd stayed with him.
And, like Sting, and Tom Jones back in 2008, his voice delivered beautifully.
Which is remarkable in itself, as anyone who heard him doing the live stuff (as on Long Player with the Faces in the early 70s) would surely have believed the hard-pushed vocal chords would have thrown in the towel before the millennium swapped over.
No chance, and going by recent reviews of his concerts, rockin' Rod, or "Rod the Mod" if you want to step back 45 years, is as sharp and slick as ever he was.
And a bit of a down-to-earth lad, as several shoppers discovered the last time he was in the Bay, as he went wandering about the town with Penny Lancaster - who would subsequently become his third wife in 2007.
He happily obliged with an autograph or two.
It was his rapport with the 25,000-strong Mission Concert crowd back in 2005 that will remain a colourful and strong memory for all those who were there.
From the first song to the last, he wore it well.
And no doubts at all, he's gunna wear it well again.