“Nobody told me Bryan Adams wasn’t cool and the TV just told me he was.”
So said American singer/songwriter Butch Walker on his track “Summer Of ’89.”
What he might have said is: nobody told the woman—and what appeared to be her daughter—as they danced their way through “Somebody.”
And it seems to me that Bryan Adams has always been like that. Critics and haters gonna hate. The rest of us don’t care. We just love the songs—and Bryan? Well, Bryan doesn’t give a shit.
He’s too busy, in his fifth decade in this country, selling out arenas. Not for nothing, you suspect, does he kick off with “Roll With The Punches.” It’s the title track from an album that isn’t out yet, but it instantly sounds like it belongs.
The fact is, they all belong in arenas, and there’s barely anyone on Planet Rock that does this better.
Essentially, he’s found the elixir to eternal youth and he’s called it “18 Till I Die.” He plays that one straight after the aforementioned “Somebody”—but the one he’d played before rather tells the story too: “Run To You.”
You see, during the course of the two hours and twenty minutes he’s onstage here, he knocks out some of the biggest rock songs ever made.
Christ, it’s choc-a-bloc with them. “Heaven,” “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started,” or “It’s Only Love” will do you for starters. And it proves that Adams is a brilliant songwriter and a fine guitar player. Keith Scott is the perfect foil, the real six-string too.
OK, so he’s happy to be the housewives’ choice as well, and there are some ballads like “Please Forgive Me” and “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” And if MV isn’t the target market for those, proper chunky rockers like “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me (Is You)” are much more like it.
Back in the middle of the ’80s, I—like anyone else who liked rock—had Reckless, and “Kids Wanna Rock” still sounds marvellous (and it’s played as an audience request here).
Remember when I said “the biggest rock songs”? They get no bigger than “Everything I Do (I Do It For You),” but he’s still just as good, and just as unapologetic, as “So Happy It Hurts”—complete with flying car—underlines.
If he did encores, then “Summer Of ’69” would end the set and take us there. It’s an astonishingly soaring, gleeful thing, but he’s far too understated to mess about with posing. Instead, he goes straight into “Cuts Like A Knife” and a cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
That done, we say goodbye to the band, and he simply walks through the venue to a small stage at the back to play acoustic versions of “Straight From The Heart” and a moving “All For Love,” lit up by phone lights and dedicated to those affected by war around the world.
Then, with a wave, he’s gone again. Another room full of the converted have had a one-night love affair, if you will.
And here’s the thing: this has not been a small tour, and he was an hour up the road last night. The only way you get to this level is by having a lot of songs that a lot of people connect with—for generations.
Bryan Adams has more than most. And he’s one of the best ever at it.
