Some guys have all the luck. And then there's me.

On Friday, Seven Days reported that gazillion records-selling pop star Sir Rod Stewart and his wife, model Penny Lancaster, had been spotted in and around Addison County. That included several hours on Thursday afternoon in Vergennes, where he was said to have stopped for lunch at 3 Squares Café, bought a leather jacket at Your Turn Resale Shoppe and charmed the staff at another downtown thrift store, Sweet Charity.
The sightings of the glamorous-looking couple with British accents caused quite a stir in the Little City because, as 3 Squares manager Andrea Lalumiere put it, "Leather pants on a Thursday is a lot for Vergennes."

Seven Days' report also caused a stir online, drawing more than 3,200 likes and nearly 1,000 shares on Facebook as of this posting.



But all was not as it appeared.

On Sunday, Mike Walton, who runs the UK-based Sir Rod fan club SMILER, contacted Seven Days with a few corrections to our report that the "I Was Only Joking" singer was visiting Vermont for the holidays.

One, he noted, Stewart is not from Liverpool, as the allegedly British visitor told a local store manager he was. Two, Sir Rod doesn't wear an earring or snazzy platform boots. Perhaps most damning of all, Walton wrote, "It would also be unusual to see him in a pair of leather pants on a Thursday!"

Then there was this: Stewart performed a sold-out Christmas concert in Madrid, Spain, on Thursday, the day he and his wife were supposedly spotted in Vergennes and elsewhere. And on Friday, according to Walton, Stewart held his annual Christmas party at his house in London — which is not Liverpool, let alone Vergennes.

Oops.

Fueled by our story, the Stewart news took off like a runaway downtown train. Vermonters began posting pictures on social media of a man they thought was the 78-year-old rocker in Stowe and around Middlebury, including several group selfies with the possibly British couple.

On Friday night, not long after our story published, Not Rod — or Not Sir Rod, if you prefer — attended the opening party for the Middlebury Snowbowl in Hancock. On Instagram, the ski area reposted a photo of him from the event, which included music by local band Neon Ramblers — a bluegrass pop covers offshoot of the Grift.

According to the Ramblers' Peter Day, the mystery man looked "strikingly" like Stewart. He added that a Snowbowl higher-up confirmed to the band after talking to the man that he was indeed Stewart and passed along that he had offered a kind assessment of their music: "These guys are actually really effing great.”

Whether Not Rod actually told the Snowbowl rep he was Stewart or the rep assumed so from reading the Seven Days story is unclear. An inquiry on Sunday to the Snowbowl was not immediately answered.

On Saturday, however, patrons at the Whip Bar & Grill in Stowe were delighted to bask in the presence of rock royalty. While he may not have explicitly said he was Sir Rod, Not Rod reportedly seemed happy to let people think he was.

"He didn't say no and he didn't say yes," said Briana Hayden, who was visiting Stowe from Connecticut with her boyfriend and some friends. She added that the bar was buzzing over the celebrity in its midst.

"Everyone was [quietly] talking about it being him," Hayden said. That is, until her neighbor at the bar approached the couple. "Then everybody started taking selfies with him."



Hayden noted that she had no idea who Rod Stewart was. So she texted her parents, who insisted she get a selfie. She added that after googling the singer, she wasn't convinced the spiky-haired man at the corner of the Stowe bar was him.

"It was the mole," she said. "His was on his cheek."

Stewart, famously, has a mole near his mouth.

So if he's not Stewart, who the hell is this guy?

Burlington's Terri Severance met the couple on December 10 at Foam Brewers in Burlington and struck up a conversation. She said they told her they are from England but now live in southern France, where he plays in a country-rock band — which might explain the country CDs he bought at Sweet Charity. Seven Days could not verify the names the couple gave Severance.

Severance said Not Rod played the open mic at the Venetian Cocktail & Soda Lounge in Burlington on Tuesday, where more than a few patrons noted his uncanny similarity to Sir Rod. He played originals, not Stewart songs, according to Severance.

So how did a veteran reporter get duped into thinking one of the most famous rockers in history stopped for mushroom bisque in the smallest city in Vermont?

After we got the tip on Friday and before I went out to report it, I did check the tour dates on Stewart's website. He didn't have anything listed until his North American tour kicks off in February, so it seemed plausible that he could be taking a Vermont holiday for the holidays. As Not Rod told several folks, he and Not Penny are here for a white Christmas — which is probably about as likely to happen this year as, say, Rod Stewart visiting Vermont.

I spoke to about 15 people in Vergennes that day who were all convinced it was him. Should I have dug deeper to figure out where in the world Sir Rod might really be? Clearly.

I guess I was just looking for a reason to believe.

So, folks, here is my Maggie mea culpa: The charming chap from England making the rounds in Vermont ain't Rod Stewart. But he wears it well.