music Tuesdays - Bryan Adams

This week, I am straying from the usual format to bring you a concert review.

Bryan Adams - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - Massey Hall - Toronto, Ontario

When I found out that Bryan Adams was doing an acoustic show I knew I had to go. Now for those of you who mock me for being a fan, here's a little background on myself. I'm Canadian. My formative years were in the 1980's. I realize that not everyone fitting this description was a fan but given the man's record sales, most people were. I can't say that I own all of his recordings, he did lose me for a few years, but I did purchase his three most recent and they are really good. His music has matured, naturally since he is turning 50 this year. You can't expect the guy to keep writing songs like Kids Wanna Rock forever.

Let's get back on track. The concert. Including encores he played solidly for 2.5 hours. Some of the time it was just him but for about half of the show he was joined on piano by a really great player who's name I did not catch. (Sorry.) The set was a good representation of his career from Cuts Like A Knife onward. It was really interesting to hear the songs in a stripped down format. It really showed that Adams is indeed a triple threat: singer, guitarist, songwriter. He nailed all three all night, even though he did screw up his own lyrics a number of times. One of the highlights was when long time collaborator Jim Vallance joined him on stage to play keys on The Best is Yet To Come. And I have to admit that I did get a little choked up when he performed Summer of '69. Like I said before, his music was a huge part of my formative years. I am really, really, really glad that we went to this concert. Definitely one of the better concerts I have seen in my concert-going lifetime.

Even though the ushers were being really militant about cameras, I did get some decent pics. We didn't have the best seats, but we may have had the most uncomfortable ones. (We were up in the gallery, in the narrow wooden seats. Ugh.) I did manage to sneak in a little bit of video. Here's about half of Somebody.