CALGARY - Six degrees of good.

There’s really no other way to describe the Bryan Adams concert experience.

Over the course of his 25-year solo career, and over the dozens of times he’s rolled through town, the Canadian arena rock icon always puts on a show that dabbles with the definition of good.
Good, kinda good, pretty good, very good, really good, exceptionally good and, every once in a while, incredibly good.

By his very generic nature, he can never be qualified an extreme, such as brilliant or bad, although his recorded output, especially of late, has often not only broached the latter, but skinny-dipped shamelessly and obliviously in its rank, fetid waters.

Live, though, he’s never less than good. Last night, in front of a Saddledome crowd of 13,000 or so, was no exception.

Adams was good.

How good? Well, again, after having witnessed enough of his shows to differentiate, let’s put it in the pretty good category.

Not inspired, not remarkably memorable, but still effective.

A great deal of that has to do with the fact the 46-year-old is supporting his two-disc greatest hits CD Anthology and, as a result, packed his set list with all of the basic, blue collar, adult contemporary radio faves and wholesome, saccharin prairie luv ballads — Somebody, This Time, 18 Til I Die, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You and Cuts Like A Knife — which, for most, makes the evening worthwhile and, yes, automatically good.

In fact, there are few who can compare, especially in this country, when it comes to the sheer comfort of his catalogue of hits.

They just kept coming and coming, like an open tap of FM memories, both positive and negative.

But, and this is what puts last night’s show into the lower half of that category, the energy and electricity from the band seemed to be lacking.

Adams and his four-piece band, all clad in the service station rock uniform of black tees and bluejeans (fill ’er up boys) did little more than they had to do.

The ageless maple syrup and mom frontman, for example, pretty much kept his actions to the middle of the equally as basic stage — singing and strumming where and when he was supposed to.

Sure, every so often, he’d saunter to the side for an obligatory solo or token nod to the left or the right of the room. But it all seemed to be scripted and unmotivated stage business, not the genuine improvised fun of the odd past Adams show.

Even his banter was pretty much mailed in, from the safe intro to Summer of ’69, which was one of the many singalong faves of the two-plus hour concert, to even the faux intimate invitation for a duet partner on When Your Gone, which fellow Canuck icon Pamela Anderson crappily guests on on the Anthology version.

(By the way, to the young U of C woman Adams brought up for a little ’Dome karaoke, you’re no Pammy, doll, but you have a bright future. In nursing, mind you, but a future nonetheless. Kidding!)

Still, the crowd connected to him in a way that’s impossible to argue with. There’s not one person who walked out of that arena saying the rocker was anything other than good.

Could he have been better? Of course. Possibly three or four degrees better. But, like room temperature, those few degrees don’t really make a difference in how warm it is.

Or how good you feel.

Vancouver soul pop piano man Daniel Powter was a perfect opener for Adams. He delivered a Coldplay meets Crocodile Rock set of EZ listening from his internationally embraced self-titled debut. Nice.
(Source: http://jam.canoe.ca)

Gepostet in: General News

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