I know this is supposed to be a photography blog, but I feel that an exception can be made in this case. I had the opportunity to cover one of Canada's biggest rock stars when Bryan Adams had a concert this past week at the Centre Bell in Montreal. Sadly, the coverage did not include a pass to take any photographs. So, since I would like to preserve the moment for posterity, here is my review, sans photographs, for The Old Blog. Much thanks goes out to Christopher Gonda of V13 Media for helping get me in there for the show. As always, it is much appreciated.
Curses on you, Bryan Adams, for turning me in to something that I swore I would never be. I suppose that a little bit of back story might be needed here. Bryan Adams was in Montreal Wednesday night as part of his Roll With The Punches tour. I had asked to photograph the show, but there are no photographers being permitted for this tour. However, I was very kindly given a ticket to the show.
Once in my Centre Bell seat, I did what everybody else does at a concert. I took out the cell phone. I thought I would maybe take a quick picture at the beginning of the show for the heck of it. Then I thought I would take a quick video to show to the kids at home. Next thing I knew, I had a phone full of grainy and out of focus photographs along with some videos of the same dubious quality. I had become a cell phone concert zombie.
In my defense, it is in my nature as a photographer to want to take pictures. And this tour had lots of things that I would have liked to photograph. The evening got off to a terrific start thanks to The Sheepdogs. Four Saskatchewan Prairie boys and their Québec brother, as singer Ewan Currie so eloquently put it. Local guitar hero Ricky Paquette has been with The Sheepdogs for a few years now and has been a terrific addition to the band.
Like many things, it’s hard to believe that it has been over a decade since The Sheepdogs won a contest that got the on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, but they continue to prove that the prize was well deserved. The band ripped in to “I’ve Got A Hole Where My Heart Should Be” to put an immediate charge in to the building. The slow groove of “Who?” gave us a chance to watch bass player Ryan Gullen in all of his glory. Watching him float across the stage is worth the price of admission alone.
The band continued with several of their hits, before wrapping things up with “Nobody”. Before beginning the song, Ewan asked that everyone in the crowd stand for this one so that they could all groove together. The crowd was only happy to oblige and afterwards the band walked off stage to a series of high fives while us in the stands took a moment to appreciate the great set we had just heard. The Sheepdogs continue to be great and I can’t wait for the day that they are headlining the big stage.
After a brief intermission, Bryan Adams finally joined us, but not before a little bit of stage trickery. While everyone was watching the stage as the house lights dimmed, Mr. Adams appeared on a smaller stage at the other end of the arena, acoustic guitar in hand. As everyone’s wrist bands lit up, he opened the show with “Straight From The Heart”. Before the first verse was completed, the Centre Bell had already become Montreal’s largest karaoke bar.
Making his way back to the main stage, Bryan Adams kept with the theme of the evening. It was similar to a boxer making his way to the ring, complete with video camera and security escort. Once the whole gang was assembled on stage, the band kept got the party properly started with “Kick Ass” before getting to “Run To You” and “Somebody”. The newer songs got some cheers, but the classics from Reckless always get the loudest cheers.
Bryan Adams has always been huge in Québec, and a large reason for that is his ability to communicate with the fans in French. Québec fans don’t demand mastery of the language, but will love you for life for just making the effort. That’s why Bryan Adams declared that his favourite part of the night was about to take place as he broke in to “Me Voilà”.
Other notable moments featured an inflatable drone boxing glove flying over the crowd during “Roll With The Punches” and some fun moments getting the crowd to dance during “You Belong To Me”. Showing he had a sense of humour about himself, the band played “This Time” while the original music video played on the giant wall behind them. “Please don’t laugh about my hair.”, quipped Adams before the song began. There was also a touching moment to remember Tina Turner, who Bryan remembered as being a great friend, before “It’s Only Love”.
As the evening came closer to an end, the romantics in the crowd cuddled for “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” which featured a nice trick involving the wrist bands. As Bryan Adams sang, the wrist bands slowly began to turn off until Adams reached the lyric “I’d die for you”, at which point the arena was plunged into near darkness.
“Summer of ’69” had a couple of false starts in order to let the faithful get their cameras ready to record. Guilty. The song featured the traditional running high-five between Adams and Keith Scott, who was his usual amazing self all evening. The Adams-Scott duo has been rocking the world since the beginning and there looks to be no stopping them.
The main stage portion of the evening came to end after “Cuts Like A Knife” before BryanAdams made his way back to the small stage where the evening had began. A couple of acoustic songs, “Alberta Bound”, with some lyrics adjusted for the local crowd, and “All For Love” brought the evening to an end.
What a show. Bryan Adams is an old pro at this and the concert was a great mix of newer songs and some classic Canadian rock and roll. We’ve all seen the show before, but we can’t wait for his next visit to see it all over again. But next time, maybe we can take some photographs? Please? The Roll With The Punches tour continues through November. Don’t you dare miss it when Bryan Adams hits a town near you.
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