Review: Bryan Adams – Capital FM Arena – 13 November 2014

Striding on stage to thunderous applause from an almost capacity crowd the groover from Vancouver opened the first night of his Reckless 30^th Anniversary Tour, appropriately, with new revisited track Reckless and set out his statement of intent for the first part of the show.

For 55 years of age, the Canadian veteran puts a great many young rockers to shame with his energy and performance and showed no signs of tiring throughout the two and a quarter hour show.

And what a show! When you have as many hits as BA you don’t need a support!

His band (known as The Dudes Of Leisure) are incredibly tight. Consisting of lead guitarist, and long-time collaborator, Keith Scott, Norm Fisher on bass, keyboardist Gary Breit and Mickey Curry on drums. All are exceptional musicians and provided the power to enhance and support the instantly recognisable gravelly tones of Adams.

Reckless is BA’s only number one album to date and hearing it live in its entirety meant hit after hit. Each song didn’t disappoint and the audience, made up of young and old, very quickly warmed up. No sitting in the seated stall area thank goodness!

After the opener, One Night Love Affair, She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin, Run To You, Heaven, Somebody, Kids Wanna Rock, It’s Only Love, Long Gone, and Ain’t Gonna Cry had already got the  Arena up and rockin before the anthemic classic Summer Of 69, possibly his most well known song (other than you know what) took it up another gear.

Following this with another “new” song Let Me Down Easy a more mellow track that could’ve quite easily been on the album thirty years ago BA had paved the way for that song.

Dedicating (Everything I Do) I Do It For You to the city that is famous for the Prince Of Thieves, memories of it dominating the pop charts for sixteen weeks were quickly forgotten as the power ballad belted out around the Arena, lit up by the LEDs of few hundred mobile phone torches (not quite the same as a naked flame but effective nonetheless!)

Bryan is a man of few words but has an easy banter and a genuine love and respect for his very dedicated fans. The hits continued and did the talking for him.

One “highlight” was the audience participation of Kerry shaking her booty under the spotlight to If You Wanna Be Bad, Ya Gotta Be Good from the MTV Unplugged album. You had to be there to fully appreciate it.

Throwing in a storming cover of The Beatles’ Anytime At All the main show ended with a powerful version of The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You (surely a contender for longest title for a single?)

The audience were left wanting more and they got it in spades with a surprisingly intimate encore consisting of You’ve Been A Friend To Me (from Disney’s Old Dogs) and a fantastic cover of C’Mon Everybody by Eddie Cochran where BA employed the audience to get dancing in the aisles (security weren’t too pleased) before the band departed and the man himself brought the evening to an end with solo performances of She Knows Me, Straight From The Heart and finally a heart-felt acoustic rendition of All For Love (originally recorded with Rod Stewart and Sting for The Three Musketeers movie).

Bryan Adams doesn’t try to be cool, he is cool. So many of his songs have entered the psyche of the public probably without them realising they have been written by the unassuming old school rocker. He is part of a dying breed. He is a legend.

For me the true test of a good show is whether the performer’s songs are on my CD player the next day. Today has been another Bryan Adams’ day!

Set List:
Reckless, One Night Love Affair, She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin, Run To You, Heaven, Somebody, Kids Wanna Rock, It’s Only Love, Long Gone, Ain’t Gonna Cry, Summer Of 69, Let Me Down Easy, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, If You Wanna Be Bad, Ya Gotta Be Good, Cuts Like A Knife, Can’t Stop This Thing We Started, Anytime At All, Please Forgive Me, When You’re Gone,18 Til I Die, Cloud No 9, The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You.