Bryan Adams in Phoenix

There are moments in your life when you just want to freeze in time. The sweet and mallow sound of 'Everything I do', seductive lyrics of 'Let's make a night', ground shattering guitar chords of 'Summer of 69', haunting echoes of 'Heaven' and so on and so forth. Yes, I am talking about our good old Bryan Adams!


I had the opportunity to attend his concert in Phoenix yesterday thanks to my dear friend Quadir and of course his car! This was my first concert experience in US. I have been to a few concerts in India. And I wanted to attend one in US since I came here. And my wish came true yesterday. And in a grand fashion! Live concert of Bryan Adams is indeed a enchanting experience.

We - Quadir, Parag, Karthik and me, were right on time contradictory to our habit of reaching a bit late! The size of audience surprised me. Merely a few hundreds people were seated. Apart from the fact that the size of the theater itself was small, not many people had turned up. There were a few empty seats. And I was a bit startled to see empty seats in a Bryan Adams concert!

The beginning of the concert turned out to be funny. The concert was named 'Bryan Adams/George Thorogood'. George Thorogood is an artist, lead member of a group called 'Destroyers' of which I had never heard before. He began the concert with his banal, un-original rock-n-roll style of songs and tried to woo the crowds in which he failed miserably.

And this went on for about an hour and half. And we were starting to get worried that we might have only a guest appearance of Bryan Adams on this show! But enduring his music for sometime, he finally ended and the crew started to clean up the stage, only adding to our fear of being swindled in the name of BA. But hope and excitement took over our fears and we could see the stage being set up for a new beginning!

And then came the moment. BA in his typical carefree and charming style appeared on stage doing what he does best. Playing guitar and singing! And the whole crowd went up cheering for him. He started with a song I had never heard of and I can't place which album it could be in. And then he went on to his usual charismatic songs like 'Summer of 69', 'back to you' and so on.

And music-crazy soul I am, I could not sit on my seat and I got up and went near the front railing to cheer and shout! Quadir and I both stood there for the rest of the concert.



Observations:

1. The crowd severely lacked enthusiasm. People were sitting on their seats when he was singing songs like 'Summer of 69' or 'Back to you'. I can't imagine how you can be so calm when such songs are being played. This is a rock concert, not an opera. Come on.

2. I couldn't help compare the audience with that in Mumbai concert that I attended. People were berserk there in Mumbai. They were constantly shouting, jumping, singing along with him and were lost in his music totally. This crowd, except a few in the front rows and some in the back rows like us was more or less cold. Not responding to his crowd cheering techniques like offering the microphone to the crowd and asking for feedback etc.

3. Like he always does, he called a girl on the stage to sing 'Baby when you are gone' with him. He did this in Mumbai also. But I must say, the Mumbai babe was far more charming than the girl he called yesterday on stage. Mumbai babe was acting and singing so well on the stage that it looked like she was all prepared for it!

4. No songs from the album Spirit which happens to be my favorite album.

5. Acoustics of the hall were nothing more than average. The sound was not crystal clear and it lacked clarity many a time during the show.

6. Just like he always does, he closed the show once, bade good bye to the crowd and then returned on stage after a few seconds singing 'Run to you'. This guy knows how to make audience love him!