The Faces- You Wear It Well

What a beautiful mess... and I'm not talking about the hundreds of lbs of glitter covering the stage. Its the Faces tanked to the gills but still delivering an awesome rendition of "You Wear It Well".

Appearing on Rod Stewart's first solo album, the song, if not in name, was still basically the Faces even though original bass player Ronnie Lane had already split and Ron Wood was just about to leave for the Rolling Stones. Maybe thats why the abandon in this live version? Whatever reason, this "You Wear It Well" outshines the recorded version by a long shot.

Ron Wood's intro is terrific, Stewart is so drunk that you can see his eyes almost roll back in his head [0:06] and falls down trying to do a bow [0:27]. However Rod gets it together and does a great job, even deftly executing a fine backwards summersault at 2:15... so cool.

I've always been a huge fan of Ron Wood's guitar playing in the Faces and here is no exception. His unique style is simple but hard to cop, it took me a few years to get it right. I bumped into him here in New York awhile ago, I was with a friend at a high end store called Barneys. I went up to him and asked what he was doing and he said "buying jeans". He looked great, he'd cut all his hair off and he seemed really healthy; I remember thinking he looked a little like Robert DeNiro. He was really friendly and we talked for a few minutes and then said goodbye.

The next night I watched the stones perform live on HBO and was shocked to see him with a full head of hair- the haystack was back in full effect. You can imagine how bummed I was to realize that that thing is a wig. Come on, Ron you're Ron Wood! No need for that!