19/09/96 - HORSESHOE TAVERN, TORONTO

Review by John Sakamoto (Jam! Showbiz)
Finally, a capital R Rock Star who still knows the difference between playing a show in a club and playing a CLUB show.

After being shut out Thursday night at the MuchMusic Video Awards, Bryan Adams hauled his ass three blocks down Queen West to the congenial beer-and-smoke pit known as the Horseshoe and played what can only be described as a quintessentially Canadian bar gig.

Forget all that Blind Date business, where a headline act trucks in 14 semis worth of equipment and basically stages its arena show for a room of 400 people.

Adams and his longtime band used the same bare-bones set-up it had performed on at Much: bass, drums, a couple of guitars, and a keyboard. No backdrop, no strobe lights, nothin' but the most basic tools of the trade.

And none of this "let's play exactly the same set we've been playing for the past six weeks and get the hell out of here." Starting with a good-naturedly wobbly cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's The House Is Rockin', Adams took requests, covered both Louie Louie AND Gloria, and even invited fans on stage to take over on lead vocals (unremittingly badly, we might add).

Hell, during Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman, an entire chorus of women, all clad in black dresses, drifted onstage, not to sing, but to DANCE to the damn song.

To top it all off, Adams cranked out an impromptu version of the unofficial Canadian national anthem, Takin' Care Of Business, then proceeded to sing both his AND Tina Turner's parts on It's Only Love.

Proving once and for all that, while a lot of performers can move from a bar to a stadium, only a choice few also know how to do the reverse.

**********

Summary by Bryan King:
While in Toronto to perform on the Much Music Awards a club show at a downtown club called the Horseshoe Tavern was announced the the day of the gig. Needless to say, there was a mad scramble for tickets from BA fans who heard the show being advertised as an all request / cover show. About 400 fans got tickets for this unique show which was also attended by many "music business types" that were in town for the Much Music Awards as well. Most people expected it to resemble the Secret Show of 1993 in Barcelona, Spain , but it did not. Many more originals were played than what people had expected. Bryan played a variety of cover songs and original material for the rowdy Thursday night crowd during his 90 minute set.

Bryan opened with a Stevie Ray Vaughan bar room romp called The House Is Rocking which he performed with Brian Setzer back in March for their VH1 Duets special. He then proceded to mix up some new songs with old ones that he had not played for a long time and some covers. Older songs that he dug up from the dead were Diana, Lonely Nights and Little Red Rooster . Cover songs he played were Twist and Shout, Louie Louie and the last song of the evening Gloria For a joke, he took the band through the song Life is a Highway which is by fellow Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane.

Setlist:
The House Is Rockin'
The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You
Do To You
Twist And Shout
Diana
Louie Louie
Lonely Nights
Life Is A Highway
Red Rooster
Can't Stop This Thing We Started
This Time
Take Me Back
18 Til I Die
Black Pearl
Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?
(Life Is A Highway 2)
Takin' Care Of Business
There Will Never Be Another Tonight
Summer Of '69
(Life Is A Highway 3)
It's Only Love
Gloria

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