Face Of Cheam

If this was a normal Bryan Adams show at the O2, then at £67 I would have given it a miss, allbeit begrudgingly. As you know he has been a favourite artist of mine since I was 11 when Reckless came out and I have seen him several times since 1987, occasionally several nights a tour. These days, with ticket prices inflating, I only tend to go one night each tour but with this being the first time above fifty quid then I was thinking twice. However, Bryan has been doing acoustic shows across the US & Canada and now it was the UK’s turn. A chance to see him do a set with just an acoustic guitar and a piano player, Gary Breit, was something I could not turn down.
Rumours were that in the US shows, he would take requests from the audience and whilst I left my Take Me Back banner at home (or on my brother car in 1998!) I was hoping for a few songs not played for ages. I was slightly disappointed when I found out afterwards that his set was static for the UK shows, but relieved that he did not do something like ‘Remember’ somewhere else and not here! He opened up with Run To You which only really works acoustically with the crowd doing the hand clap in the middle solo. (the solo in the intro was ignored). From then on it was good but not fantastic. The set for me was too ballad heavy, though, Thought I Died & Gone To Heaven remains a firm favourite, dirge like Let’s Make It A Night To Remember and Please Forgive Me, had a negative effect on me. Heat Of The Night was really effective, one of the songs that featured the piano and a trilogy of Cuts Like A Knife, Lonely Nights and This Time, performed solo by Bryan just about justified the price of the ticket, they were that good. A few songs were played from his ‘11’ album, of which Not Romeo Not Juliet was best, and for a long long time at an Adams gig he played an original song which I did not know, one he wrote for Ray Charles called The Right Place. The encore continued the hot & coldness of the gig with Somebody being played brilliantly and Have You Ever Loved A Women sounding awful. Bryan ended with a ballad he wrote when he was eighteen. A shame someone didn’t tell him then to stop writing ballads as he was never going to better ‘Straight From The Heart’. All in all, it was good to see him in a different environment, but he will need to reduce the cost of the ticket for me to go again.

Run To You / Tonight We Have The Stars / Back To You / Here I Am / Thought I'd Died And Gone To Heaven / Let's Make A Night To Remember / Can't Stop This Thing We Started / I Thought I'd Seen Everything / When You Love Someone / Heat Of The Night / Not Romeo Not Juliet / Everything I Do / Cuts Like A Knife / Lonely Nights / This Time / Mysterious Ways / Please Forgive Me / Summer Of '69 / Walk On By / Heaven / When You're Gone / The Right Place / The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You ///// Somebody / Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? / Never Let Go / Straight From The Heart