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17/01/00 - CENTENNIAL CONCERT HALL, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA Review by John Kendle (Winnipeg
Sun): They
may not be kids anymore, but fans of Bryan Adams still wanna rock. ********** Review
by Bartley Kives (Winnipeg Free Press): MAN, WHAT a difference a change of venue makes. Bryan Adams, last seen wilting away amid the cavernous expanse of the Winnipeg Arena, came back to life in dramatic fashion last night at the much more intimate Centennial Concert Hall. The 40-year-old pop singer has some pretty dodgy memories of Winnipeg, especially that disastrous rainstorm at Birds Hill Park during his Waking The Neighbours tour. But that soggy affair seemed like a millennium ago, as Adams pounded out what likely was his best local concert ever last night before a sold-out crowd of 2,300 at the soft-seat concert hall. With a string of sappy soft rock hits under his belt, Adams is no longer a rock 'n' roll guy. No matter. Last night, he performed as the frontman of a simple, straight-up rock trio and delivered a stripped-down set that anyone -- from ardent fans to people who despise his anthemic songwriting -- could enjoy. Dressed all in white in front of an equally pale wall of Marshall amplifier stacks, Adams and his band looked like the Men From Glad, or at least a bunch of guitar-toting psychiatric nurses. There was a message behind the visual effect: Adams was there to play music, with little of the corny schtick you might expect from a former arena rocker. Sure, he pulled a West St. Paul student up on stage to help him sing When You're Gone and did the audience participation thing -- with all the house lights on, of course -- in the middle of jammy version of Cuts Like A Knife. Mostly, however, he ditched the cheeseball concert playbook and simply delivered the hits. For most of the show, Adams played the bass guitar, switching to a six-string only for light arrangements of songs such as the ballad Everything I Do I Do It For You, the mid-tempo On A Day Like Today and a gentle version of Straight From The Heart. Predictably, he earned the best response from his rockers, which ranged from the relatively recent 18 Til I Die to old standards like Summer Of '69 (which the crowd sang more than he did) and the aforementioned Cuts Like A Knife, which earned Adams a standing ovation just over an hour into the show. The rock songs clearly benefitted from the simple, rock 'n' roll set-up, which was augmented only by a spray of projection lighting that looked like high-speed frames of splattered paint. And although Adams seemed amiable -- at one point, he jokingly relieved a security guard of his stagefront female-monitoring duties -- the singer basically stuck to the script and kept the show's pace fast and honest. At press time, the only on-stage joke directed at his bandmates came at the expense of guitarist Keith Scott, a flamboyant player prone to excessive hammer-ons and other bits of Eddie Van Halenitis. "Keith really is the star of the show. Forget about the bass player," Adams joked. Yeah right, Bryan. As much as I expected to despise you and your mercilessly unhip show, I have to admit the simple rock schtick does look good on you. ********** Pre-concert article by Bartley Kives (Winnipeg Free Press): After 20 year as a pop music hit-maker, Bryan Adams has learned how to age gracefully. Canada's biggest male pop star, who turned 40 in November, has carved out a classy new role for himself in a music world that hasn't always been kind to him. As a pure pop balladeer who used to be a shaggy-haired rocker, Adams may as well have a massive target painted on his back. Critics have assailed his recent music, particularly his movie soundtrack hits, for being tame and lifeless slabs of homogenous-sounding pop. And that was after the Kingston-born Vancouverite was branded a whiner in the late '80s for complaining about Canadian content rules that deemed his own collaborations with other songwriters to be foreign compositions. As a result, Adams is wary of the media and understandably so. But he really has nothing to worry about -- his recent actions have earned him nothing but praise. First, the pop singer embraced reality and stopped trying to act like a rock star. Instead of inflicting yet another arena tour on his throngs of loyal fans, Adams decided to play intimate, soft-seat theatres on his latest Canadian tour, which stops at the Centennial Concert Hall on Monday. Smaller venues mean better sound quality for his long-suffering fans, who don't need to hear Everything I Do or All For Love at 110 decibels. And they also get a better look at their idol. Even more impressive is the actual impetus for Adams' latest tour. Sure, he stands to earn some cash from the venture, as ticket prices range from $49.50 to $75 at the sold-out Centennial Concert Hall. The tour's goal, however, is to promote his recent book, Made In Canada, a fund-raising project for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The book is a series of black-and-white photographs of famous Canadian women, who range from author Margaret Atwood and astronaut Roberta Bondar to swimsuit pin-up Pamela Anderson and rock singer Alanis Morissette. The kicker is, Adams took all the snaps himself. Adams had previously recorded some music and promoted a concert in aid of breast cancer research. But he was galvanized into action when he found out one of his friends had the disease as well. The woman, identified only as Donna, appears on the cover of Made In Canada. She died two years ago at the age of 38. "She was in the final stages of chemotherapy and radiation treatments when she agreed to be photographed," Adams writes in the foreward to the book. "She was very tired and emotional during the shoot. We spoke about her two children and her husband (and) she was worried about their well-being without her. At one point, she asked me to touch her shoulder and feel the tattoo marks on her chest and back left by the needles of the cancer treatments. She was hopeful that what she had been through would prolong her life and that she could get back to being herself again and go to her children's dance that night. "I think her portrait looks hopeful, but she was my age when she passed away -- 38." Such is the way of the sober-minded, grown-up version of Bryan Adams. And it's a welcome change from the Bryan Adams we saw as recently as 1996. Spurred on by either bad advice or some form of musical mid-life crisis, Adams spent the mid-1990s trying to recapture the macho swagger of his youth. He dressed up like a gold-lamé Mick Jagger and styled his hair like a runway model. But the fashion crimes paled in comparison to the sentiment expressed by his songs at the time. The excruciating 18 Til I Die served as the soundtrack for middle-aged rock-star denial, while The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You left critics sniping that the only thing that looked good on Bryan Adams was retirement. But Adams has since recovered on this front, too. While he's still trying to sound hip -- Spice Girl-turned-rocker Mel C shows up for a duet on his latest best-of compilation, The Best Of Me -- he knows that his 20-year catalogue is the real attraction for his fans. That's why he chose to put out another greatest hits album -- his second in seven years -- instead of recording new music. His first best-of record, 1993's So Far So Good, sold upwards of 10 million copies. The Best Of Me won't fare as well, but Adams likely does not care. "I just wanted to turn the page," he told the Toronto Sun last week. "It was the end of a great decade and I just wanted to close it with some of the music I loved and had made in the last 10 years." Bryan Adams' Jan. 17 show at the Centennial Concert Hall is sold-out. Setlist: | |||
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® 2005 18 Til I Die.co.uk. All
rights reserved.
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Thanks to Julia for the setlist
Adams rocks Winnipeg |
