In the spring of 2022, Bryan Adams (Canada’s Springsteen) packed London’s Royal Albert Hall for three nights to play live versions of three of his records. Oddly, he didn’t go with the first three nor even the most popular, but opted to play in their entirety, 1983’s Cuts Like a Knife, 1987’s Into The Fire, and 1991’s Waking Up The Neighbours. Each album was recorded and packaged with a live DVD grabbing highlights from each night and is being released this week as Live At The Royal Albert Hall. The release is a goldmine for diehard Adams fans and completists, but pretty much an unnecessary experiment in excess for the casual listener.
It’s impressive to think that nearly four decades after its release, an album like Cuts Like A Knife can still generate enough excitement to fill the 5,000-plus legendary arena. And when Adam and his band play tracks like “This Time,” “Straight From The Heart,” and the title track, you realize just how great a pop songwriter Adams is. The songs sound just as fresh and relevant in 2022 as they did when they were released during the time of the Reagan administration. Into The Fire though, Adams’ fifth LP, seems like an odd choice for one of the themed nights. The album did okay when it first came out but was eclipsed in sales and critical praise by its predecessor, Reckless. In the show, he stays faithful to the record, and the handful of hits it generated in the 1980s (“Hearts on Fire,” “Heat of the Night”) are well-received by the audience, but it’s the weakest of the three sets in this collection.
The final album, Waking Up The Neighbours, is almost as strong as the first night and with far better songs than the second outing including a rousing version of “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” and “There Will Never Be Another Tonight.” He and the band close on the overly earnest “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” a song that is definitely of the time and sounds a bit outdated, but the fans react well to it.
These songs are played fairly faithful to their original renditions, though the order is shuffled a bit. The audience seems to be enjoying it and at 64 Adams is certainly up for the task with his vocals just as strong and displaying the stamina and energy he had in the 1980s. But all of this begs the question of why there really needed to be a live document of these shows. Those in attendance seemed to be having a great time, but there is little to differentiate this music from the original LPs.
One Response
He missed the second verse of almost every song on Waking Up the Neighbours which is just so weird when advertising that you’re going to play the whole album. He’s been doing that for years too. The guitars, generally, sound awful with far too much chorus and solos played like Keith Scott hadn’t even listened again to the original record. And Bryan hits the chords far too often like he thinks people won’t notice. The whole thing sounds half-hearted and messy.