“18 to I Die” seems to be coming true
Mobile photo (due to photo contract): Odd Inge Rand
Bryan Adams has long since ended up in a segment as an eternal artist who also makes adults feel just as young. If you belong to the 80’s or 90’s generation as young adult music consumers, Bryan Adams (65 years in the autumn) struck a clean chord with a well-grown audience once again in Oslo on Monday.
It’s the second time he’s in Spektrum under the “So Happy It Hurts” headline, and it’s packed in the main hall. A place where he played for 4-5,000 in both 1994 and 1996, but in recent times has sold out several times. Without any notable new hits in the bag. Weird about that. You’re relevant, then you’re completely out, then you become “classic” and “vintage”. How much the last segment sells tickets around the world, you can ask Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Sting and all the others about. Yesterday, the Rolling Stones started a new tour with 81-year-old Mick Jagger in front.
Enough about that.
For the youngest in that particular camp, that is Bryan Adams, there are songs from albums like “Cuts Like A Knife” (1983), “Reckless” (1984) and “Waking Up The Neighbours” (1991) people have listened to , and still listening. Whether it’s stadium anthems like “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” and “Somebody” (which came early) or “It’s Only Love” (midway) or “Summer of 69”, “Run To You” and “Cuts Like A Knife” (towards the end). We also get enough ballads and think back to our teenage crushes with, whether they’re called “Heaven” (bad new version then, Bryan!), “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” or the ending with “Straight Through The Heart” and “All For Love”. Check, check and check in the memory book for the vast majority of the around 9,000 present.
Ok, maybe this concert was a bit more routine and slightly more tired than the one we experienced in 2022. But Bryan Adams delivered for 2 hours and 15 minutes in the original key anyway, even though “Please Forgive Me”, “Here I Am” and some others were a little more strained than a few years ago. We must then be allowed to touch you, you annoying healthy eternity machine.
The desire songs section was also a bit of a slog, with a “One Night Love Affair” without the second verse and “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” without Keith Scott’s great guitar solo. And no matter what is chosen (there were QR codes in the arena where you could choose wish songs from before the show), it will be whatever he feels like then and there. And did we really need “House Arrest” and the otherwise somewhat obscure album track “Don’t Drop That Bomb On Me” right before this section? Give us something from “You Want It, You Got It” then for those of us who have been around the longest. We deserve it! (After all, he played “Lonely Nights” in Stockholm two days before).
All in all, it was a more than acceptable evening once again. The basis for comparison is brutal as he has performed flawless concerts in Oslo Spektrum in both 2015, 2017 and 2022.
And now that a lot of people are sitting at home watching the Bon Jovi documentary on Disney+ where the 60-year-old Jon Bon Jovi hardly makes a single sensible sound from his vocal cords back in 2022, Bryan Adams delivers impressive qualities through a set list of around 30 sounds like a 64-year-old in 2024.
He is probably already “halfway there” too, even if the finish line is not on the radar quite yet.