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12/02/98 - COREL CENTRE, OTTAWA Review
by Ben Rayner (Ottawa Sun): An acquaintance summed up Bryan Adams' enduring appeal for me quite succinctly the other day."It's sort of like Kraft dinner," he said."No matter where you eat it -- Ottawa or New York or Budapest or Bangkok -- you can always count on it to taste exactly the same. It's reliable, and sometimes it even tastes pretty good." He's completely right, too. Adams performance last night at the Corel Centre was entirely easily digestible and -- although I'm going to hate myself in the morning for saying this -- just as satisfying as a steaming bowl of KD. There's no denying it: Adams and his tightly wound backing band are damned good at what they do, even if the end result is like listening to an endless classic-rock radio broadcast or one of those Guitar Rock compilations that pop up on late-night TV. Playing on a simple black stage, they whipped through an energetic, if rote, 2 1/2-hour set heavy with familiar-before-you-ever-heard-them bar-room rockers like Somebody, the Rod Stewart-ish Can't Stop this Thing We Started and a gruff 18 'Til I Die, peppered occasionally with heart-bursting ballads like Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman and the world record-setting Everything I Do (I Do It for You) designed (successfully, I might add) to get the Bics out in force. From the competently rocking opener, The Only Thing that Look Good on Me Is You -- which featured no less than 10 long-legged lovelies strutting about in neon stoles at the front of the stage -- to old chestnuts like the infectious This Time and the dutifully held-back-until-the-last-minute encore double whammy of Summer of '69 and Heaven, Adams chose his material with an expert's eye to keeping the audience stoked. He played the crowd like a pro too -- giving front-row fans a chance to strum his guitar, quizzing the audience on its approval of the arena ("Is it better than the Civic Centre? I've got good memories of the Civic Centre") and wryly dedicating a few bars of Steve Miller's The Joker to Canada's 1998 Olympic team (get it?). And though the 10,000 highly partisan fans in the audience (including a delighted handful assembled on scaffolding at the back of the stage) didn't quite match the 16,000-plus mob who witnessed Adams open the then-Palladium two years ago, they certainly responded in kind. They sang along gamely with the "na-na-nahs" at the end of Cuts Like a Knife, cheered Adams' mid-sentence pauses and, at his urging, a band's worth of them even got up on stage and molested Summer of '69 for a few verses. To Adams' credit, he's seen fit to broaden his scope -- if only slightly -- on this tour, throwing a few arrangments into the mix that owe a lot more to his recent MTV Unplugged appearance than his radio-friendly creative dalliances with Mutt Lange. The new touches work, too, for the most part. His latest single, Back to You, is a pleasantly uplifting bit of fluff. A country-ish reading of I Think about You was breezy fun, and bringing Uilleann piper Davy Spillane along for the "resurrected" 1978 rocker I'm Ready and '81's Fits Ya Good (given a moody, minor-key turn) was a nice touch. His airy piping and some keyboard strings gave already pretty tunes an added, mournful depth. In fact, on treacly numbers like When You Love Someone, Adams might be able to give Celtic-lite balladeers like John McDermott a run for their money. He's got a fan at City Hall, too. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson managed to snag Adams' time for a few minutes before the show and present the singer -- who called Ottawa home in the early 1970s -- with the key to the city."It's obviously very nice because it harks back to the days when I used to live here," the famously press-shy Adams said shortly after the hastily arranged ceremony, in which he also signed the city's register."It's nice that they remember I used to live here, so it's quite sweet." Still, he admitted, even he was having a bit of trouble pinpointing exactly when he lived in the area -- although legend has it he launched his career playing in a Beacon Hill garage band called Kayne (on a $75 guitar he found in the Byward Market, no less). His calculations had him living in Beacon Hill around '70 or '71. Adams wasn't sure what one does with a key to the city, either."I don't really want to put this up in my house with my name on it," he said, adding with a laugh:"My dad will probably dig it. I can always melt it down. It'll make a nice ring," he joked."Don't print that!" Setlist: | |||
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Thanks to Bryan King for the photos
BA introducing the band
Bryan on guitar Just before the show a ceremony was held where Bryan was awarded a key to the city |
