Concert review: Bryan Adams, ICC, Sydney, 24th March 2019

A while ago I saw that long time Canadian pop/rock singer, Bryan Adams would be touring Australia. One of my favourite songs is Summer of 69, which is about sex by the way. As you'd expect because I go to a lot of concerts I bought a ticket to his show at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Sydney.

Before every concert I always look online for the setlist and to see who the opening artist is. Opening for Bryan was Australian singer, Mahalia Barnes, the daughter of rocker Jimmy Barnes who was in Cold Chisel and has a solo "singing" career. I use quotation marks because Jimmy cannot sing, but more about that later.

Mahalia opened and she was one of the better support acts I've heard. That was until she turned political and referenced yesterday's state election. She complained about the lockout laws and basically indicated that people shouldn't support the Liberal National Party. Two things:

1 - Live music still exists.
2 - Artists shouldn't turn political because it's really alienating. Not everyone is left wing. Some people are right wing.

I will briefly talk about the lockout laws though. Generally speaking the lockout laws have become a Labor, Green, Keep Sydney Open and Liberal Democratic Party issue. If the lockout laws are ever to be reversed then Labor and the Green Party need to stop using it as a policy platform. I'm right wing and I'm against the lockout laws but when Labor and the Green Party make it a policy platform they alienate and exclude right wingers from the debate.

I could write an entire blog on how the lockout laws have killed Sydney's music scene and how the majority shouldn't be punished for a couple of tragic deaths, but that's not what this blog is about.

This blog is about Bryan Adams' tour to Australia and New Zealand.

You may or may not know that following the Christchurch Mosque Massacre he cancelled his show schedule for March 17th at Hagley Park, close to where the Mosque shooting took place. He has said in interviews that he was traumatised.

The tour was in support of his new album, Shine a Light and he dedicated the title track to all New Zealanders. Shine a Light had been written with Ed Sheeran. The dedication was possibly the best moment of the show. As I've written in previous blogs, I always love when artists talk to the audience and make it personal. That's exactly what he did, and it was really great to see that he was personally impacted by the Christchurch massacre, great to see in the sense that he actually cared. I love when artists care about world events. This may be a contradiction, but Bryan Adams didn't make it political at all. He just said that it had been a "traumatic experience" and left it at that.

Afterwards he sung Heaven, which has been covered by numerous artists including DJ Sammy, which until tonight was the only version I was familiar with. I had no idea Bryan Adams had sung the song originally. The original is fantastic if you haven't heard it.

Another highlight of the show was when he sung his biggest song, Summer of 69 and a short time later When you're gone which he had originally recorded with the Spice Girls singer, Melanie Chisolm in 1998.

I haven't been hugely familiar with Bryan's music and like I say, I was only there for two songs, but I also discovered his song, 18 til I die. Lyrically this is a fantastic song that is basically about being young at heart. I absolutely loved it.

The purpose of a tour is to promote your music that people may not know about and Bryan Adams succeeded in that.

He did make one mistake though which was in the encore which came after a main setlist of 22 songs, bringing the total to about 28 songs. He invited Jimmy Barnes to the stage to sing with him. I don't know what song they were trying to sing but Jimmy Barnes absolutely wrecked it. Jimmy Barnes has an awful gravelly voice and I wouldn't even say he sings. How he's had a long standing rock career is beyond me when his voice was pure torture to listen to.

I lasted about 2 minutes before I had to walk out. His voice was that bad and I was not impressed. I missed the final two songs of the encore so about five minutes all up. That's no big deal as I'd heard all the songs I wanted to.

There was one funny moment where Bryan sung a song, I'll always be right there, with Keith Scott on guitar. He restarted the song a couple of times, and the second time he said, "fucking hell" but it was funny because he incorporated it into the melody when he went back into the song because saying, "I can't say 'fucking hell' in the middle of a love song". It was one of those moments where you had to be there.

So other than Mahalia Barnes being political and other than Bryan Adams inviting Jimmy Barnes to the stage for the encore it was a great show and I loved his dedication to Christchurch.

The security at the ICC was also lacking compared to other times I've been. There was no bag check and given the recent events in Christchurch I wasn't impressed with that either. I hope the ICC ramps up their security for future shows.

I also could have done with side big screens because the stage lights did block some of my view and I couldn't really see Bryan's face. I can't blame the venue for that though as I'd chosen a cheap seat for this concert.

I'd give it a 4/5.