Canada's biggest export

I have to admit, that when I first bought tickets for Bryan Adams I wasn't too fussed.
In my eyes he was an 80's rocker who was well past his sell by date.

More than anything I had purchased the tickets for my better half who had wanted to see the man preform live, for me as long as he played the Reckless album I'd be happy.

But thats an old album so I wasn't expecting much.

It would be wrong of me before I go on not to mention support band Black Daniel, they were rubbish; don't even bother, I won't.

At bang on 20:30 The lights dropped and the man himself took to a small 6x6 stage in the center of the standing area. Kicking off with just him and an acoustic guitar he launched into "Can't stop this thing we started."

Another song with just the man and his guitar followed by just two words, "Hit it" and the band arrived onstage.

Singing a song I must admit I didn't know the singer/songwriter made his way to the stage as he shock hands and hugged fans en route.

From there on in it was mainly a greatest hits feast, though a couple of new songs did sneak their way into the main set.

Unusually hits like "Summer of 69," "Run to you" and "Everything I do" were part of the main set.
The songs that many people including myself came to hear were put upfront, rather than save a massive hit for an encore he played them straight up. This kind of attitude means you only get an encore if you deserve one.

Surprisingly Bryan made a big deal of his band, a quick search on google tell me he has been using the same musicians for oner 25 years now; and the chemistry really does show during the set. Rather than a solo artist with a backing band it seemed more like a band with the singer as a front-man than anything else.

Indeed guitarist Keith Scott was allowed a blinding extended solo during "It's only love" that far exceeds what was played on the origanl studio version.

Without a doubt Adams knows how to work a crowd, although he had microphones dotted around the stage allowing him to sing in different positions he still moved them closer to the audience here and there. And if he hadn't stood in front of one section of the audience he would just move there. For anyone looking for tips on stage craft Adams serves a great example.

For "When your gone" the singer pulled up a member of the crowd to sing the female lead, ok so she couldn't sing to save her life but you really didn't care; the overall performance still worked.



When the band left the stage you couldn't help but wonder what would be left for the encore, he played his biggest hits in the main set. As I already said, he wasn't getting an encore unless he deserved one; and yes he did deserve one.

Returning to the stage he played "Cloud number nine" followed by a stomping version of "Kids wanna rock."
After that the band left the stage as Bryan Adams was left once again with just him and an acoustic guitar, again he played a newer song I wasn't familiar with before finishing with "Straight from the heart."

And after two hours and twenty minutes he left the stage for the last time.

I said at the top of this I wasn't expecting much from the show. Having attended I can only say this.

WOW, quite simply it's one of the best concerts I've ever been too.

Maybe your a fan, maybe your not. Maybe your a casual fan like myself who just know his hits. Whatever you are if you enjoy live music I cannot stress enough that you should see Canada's biggest export live.