Rod Stewart’s Las Vegas Residency to End (For Now)
May 12 2025, Published 2:00 a.m. ET
Rod Stewart fans recently received some sad news. They will have to wait until 2025 to see their hero perform his 200th residency show in Las Vegas.
While the soundtrack often associated with Vegas may typically be some mash-up of Elvis Presley, the overlapping sounds of casino games, and the rush of water flowing through the Bellagio’s fountains, you can’t leave out performances by some of the biggest names in pop and rock ’n’ roll. Stewart has played at Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace for the last 13 years but regrettably had to cancel a recent show as he suffered from a case of strep throat.
Stewart said, “Most people can work with strep throat, but obviously not me.” (He is a singer, after all.) “I’m absolutely gutted. I’ve been looking forward to this concert for so long.”
“My deepest regrets for any inconvenience this has caused,” said Stewart. “Thankfully, we’ll now be returning in 2025, and I hope to see you all there.”
The End of an Era
Stewart will turn 80 in January and has been rocking for 60 years. In 1964, he released his first single with the B-side ‘I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town’, both covers of blues standards. His first single to chart – and hit number 1 in the UK, US, and Australia – was 1971’s ‘Maggie May’, which was a Tim Hardin cover.
Between his hits, Stewart was part of The Jeff Beck Group as main vocalist and sometime-songwriter, but Beck broke up that first lineup of the group after two albums together (the first under the solo name Jeff Beck).
Other number 1s include 1975’s ‘Sailing’, 1977’s ‘I Don’t Wait to Talk About It’ and ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, and ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ in 1978. The latter sparked a copyright infringement lawsuit by Jorge Ben Jor, one of the most important musicians of Brazil’s samba rock.
Jor claimed that the chorus of Rod’s hit was lifted from his own ‘Taj Mahal’. Stewart has admitted to the “unconscious plagiarism” and also admitted that he deliberately took the synthesizer riff from a string arrangement on Bobby Womack’s ‘(If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It’.
Stewart has since consistently released solo studio albums and most recently collaborated with Jools Holland for 2024’s Swing Fever. The album features Holland’s acclaimed Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and focuses on songs from the big band era.
A Vegas Legend
While stars like Adele and Bruno Mars have also played Vegas, Stewart’s run of nearly 200 gigs makes him one of the city’s most consistent performers. He won’t be performing his hits forever, though. In 2023, Stewart said, “I’m not saying I won’t sing ‘Maggie May’ ever again, but it’ll be the end of the tours that I’ve been doing for a million years”. ‘Maggie May’ was a B-side on the ‘Reason to Believe’ single.
Stewart has also said to fans when writing on Instagram, “I shall never retire! I was put on this earth to be a singer”. Just one gig away from the 200th of his Vegas residency, he’ll be aiming to make the 2025 show one to remember.
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