Bryan Adams in London, “Reckless 30th
Anniversary Tour”, on a Saturday? I HAD TO be there. So I grabbed the Mrs. and
there we went.
It was my first time going to a concert in
London. I took the tube. No sign of people going to the gig during the trip to
the O2. As soon as I got out I saw its unmistakable external structure, kind of
reminiscent of a circus.
Bought something to drink and in we went. To me,
the main difference from other arenas I´d been to was how high it was. In fact,
people suffering from vertigo or fear of heights was recommended to not buy a
ticket in the highest areas; that´s how high it was.
The floor was filled with seats (I´ll NEVER understand
seats at a rock concert, even Adams himself has commented about it several
times during this tour).
As for the crowd… I´d say the average age was late
40´s – early 50´s. Didn´t see a whole lot of BA t-shirts, and most of the ones
I did see were the ones from this tour, which you could buy on the stands. One
exception wore “18 ´Til I Die”´s ´96 tee. In fact, I saw a few guys with cotton
trousers and jacket, as if they were going to a social event, instead of a rock
concert. Rock´N´Roll and cotton? Gimme a break… Anyway, I wore my “Into The
Fire” t-shirt, the one I´ve been wearing since my first Adams concert 26 years
ago.
The stage had two big screens on each side and
a huge one in the middle, which showed the name of the album: “Reckless”. When
we were just minutes away from the start of the show that image disappeared and
then the original album cover came… and I won´t say anything else. I don’t want
to spoil any surprises for anyone going to the show in the future.
At 20:00 sharp the whole band came on stage to
play for the next two hours and five minutes; that´s Norm Fisher on bass and Gary
Breit on keyboards alongside the inseparable Mickey Curry on drums and maestro
Keith Scott on lead guitar with, of course, boss Bryan on mighty vocals and rhythm
guitar (also lead guitar sometimes during the show).
This tour could only begin with the rifftastic
“Reckless”, an awesome track that didn´t go in the record in 1984 for just a
matter of days but it has been included in the recently released “Deluxe” edition.
It´s an amazing way to kickstart the show which, when the chorus came, made me
yell “RECKLESS!” as if my life depended on it.
Without stopping, the ending of
the first song got almost intertwined with the recognizable drums of the second
one and when the two guitarists played the riff in “One Night Love Affair”, a
chill went from my neck down to my toes and the hair in my arms stood firm like
a soldier. I was already on my own bubble and the rest of the O2 mattered
nothing to me: it was just Adams and me singing in unison “You´re the silent
type and you caught my eye…”. The heap of emotions and memories (many many
years had passed since the last time I´d heard that song live) got to its peak during
the last chorus when the band left the master alone with his voice and his
electric guitar. The crescendo in “One Night, One Night, One Night…”, which
began alone to be joined a little later by the rest of the band, reached its
climax with the stunningly melodic solo by Keith and left me so helpless that I
didn´t know whether to smile, cry or do both things at the same time.
There was no truce so the leader of the band
shouted something I hadn´t heard for over two decades: “She´s Only Happyyyyy!!!”.
Yup. It was “She´s Only Happy When She´s Dancin´”, the Party Song in capital
letters, in which our friend displayed some lead guitar while he was
interacting with the audience.
“She´s Only Happy” was followed, just as in the
album, by the great “Run To You”, sung by everybody as if that was the first
time it had been played to us, after which our host talked to us for the very
first time of the evening. He explained that the first part of the show would
be about commemorating the 30 years of “Reckless” and, with that in mind, he
introduced his co-writer Jim Vallance, who joined the band on stage on piano
for a singalong of “Heaven”. My wife cried. Enough said.
It looked like they were going to play the
album in order, from 1 to 10, but after “Heaven” they went into a great, although
shorter than usual, “Kids Wanna Rock”, with less interplay between Adams and
Scott. They followed it with “It´s Only Love”, with Keith stealing the show as
he always does on this song, after which Bryan spoke in great terms about Tina
Turner and thanked her for having him on her “Private Dancer Tour” as the
opening act; quoting him: “probably thanks to that tour, you are all here today”.
It was so much fun to listen to “Long Gone”
live, 23 years after the last time. A great song that really comes alive on
stage. Then we went from Side Two of the vinyl to the end of Side One to listen
to that anthem called “Somebody”, a song that got a massive response from the
audience.
The next tune, humorously introduced by its
writer, was one of the highlights: “Ain´t Gonna Cry”, a rockin´ joy that ended
just like on the record: with Keith Scott screaming at the top of his voice. Hilarious.
So there went the whole album. Right? Had all
the songs been played? Oh yeah, they still had to play some “Summer Of ´69”. Anyway,
as you can imagine, that one got kind of a cold reception ;-).
After “´69”, Bryan stood alone onstage with an
acoustic guitar and introduced the next tune with a funny, although vindicative,
praise of vinyl. He explained that some of the songs didn´t make it into “Reckless”
because 30 years ago there were only a limited amount of material you could fit
into a record. Then he performed “Let Me Down Easy”, another track missing from
the original LP but included in “Reckless Deluxe”. Different from what we can
hear on the special edition of the record, but beautiful and enjoyable all the
way. A pleasure for our ears.
That´s when the Canadian singer concluded his revision
of “Reckless”, but just like he said: “the good news is I have made 12 more
records” and carried on playing 15 more songs until the end of the concert. Among
them, “Cuts Like A Knife”, the song he´s played the most times in his whole
career; of course, that beautiful ballad, written when he was just 18, called
“Straight From The Heart”, the always fun cover of Eddie Cochran´s “C´mon
Everybody” and especially, an unexpected and awesome “Too Hot To Handle”, another
bonus track off “Reckless”, which he performed to please a fan who had
requested it via Twitter. The live version sounded like an improved take on
“The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You”: it became my favorite of the
whole concert, along with “One Night Love Affair”.
So to sum up: an unforgettable night. If you
have the chance to catch this show, don´t waste it. You´ll regret it. I´m
telling you.
SETLIST BRYAN ADAMS. 02 ARENA, LONDON. NOVEMBER
22, 2014.
1. RECKLESS
2. ONE
NIGHT LOVE AFFAIR
3. SHE´S
ONLY HAPPY WHEN SHE´S DANCIN´
4. RUN
TO YOU
5. HEAVEN
6. KIDS
WANNA ROCK
7. IT´S
ONLY LOVE
8. LONG
GONE
9. SOMEBODY
10.
AIN´T
GONNA CRY
11.
SUMMER
OF ´69
12.
LET
ME DOWN EASY
13.
EVERYTHING
I DO, I DO IT FOR YOU
14.
IF
YOU WANNA BE BAD, YOU GOTTA BE GOOD
15.
CUTS
LIKE A KNIFE
16.
CAN´T
STOP THIS THING WE STARTED
17.
PLEASE
FORGIVE ME
18.
WHEN
YOU´RE GONE
19.
18
´TIL I DIE
20.
CLOUD
NUMBER 9
21.
THE
ONLY THING THAT LOOKS GOOD ON ME IS YOU
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
22.
TOO
HOT TO HANDLE
23.
YOU´VE
BEEN A FRIEND TO ME
24.
C´MON
EVERYBODY
25.
SHE
KNOWS ME
26.
STRAIGHT
FROM THE HEART
27. ALL FOR LOVE
I´ll leave you now with a video of some of the best moments of the
show.
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