This 3-CD and 1 DVD/Blu-Ray package (also available on vinyl/DVD) is a record of a series of three live shows undertaken by Canadian rock legend Bryan Adams and his band at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2022.
Basically, they played and recorded three classic Adams albums (Cuts Like a Knife, Into The Fire and Waking Up The Neighbours) over the three nights and that is what we have on this package – one disc for each album and a DVD/Blu-Ray of all performances.
Let’s take the DVD/Blu-Ray first: It’s an interesting package, as the videos for the Cuts Like a Knife and Into The Fire albums are recorded live on the Albert Hall stage with no audience in attendance and rendered in black and white, whereas Waking Up The Neighbours is the full live show in colour in front of the audience.
Truth to tell, I was a bit disappointed in the audience-free concept until I actually watched it and I have to say that, to me, Cuts Like a Knife works really well done in this way.
Although there is perhaps a small amount of energy missing in comparison to the full concert recording, nonetheless, what this does show is firstly just how tight Bryan’s band is, with long-time friend and lead guitarist Keith Scott playing a blinder with probably the best Fender Stratocaster tone I have EVER heard! Secondly, on the original album, the production is very ‘early 1980s’ whereas here on this live disc, it’s just a red-hot band rocking out on a set of quite glorious pop-rock tracks.
It may have been Reckless that broke Adams into the mega-leagues, but the earlier album Cuts Like A Knife is still a wonderful collection of tracks that showcase his effortless songwriting style to great effect.
Every track on here is delivered faultlessly, with simple but oh-so-effective riffs and solos and a ton of sing-along melody in tracks such as ‘The Only One’, ‘This Time,’ ’What’s It Gonna Be’ and the stunning title track.
Most of the tracks are delivered just as per the original album, but the band throw a slight curveball in with ‘Straight From The Heart’ which is delivered by Adams on his own with acoustic guitar and harmonica, which works brilliantly.
Next up is Into The Fire. Now this is an interesting one! When the original album was released back in the day, I thought it was a bit of a let-down coming as it did after the utter magnificence of Reckless. Where were the big hooky pop-rock tracks that ruled radio the world over in the Reckless days? Where was the huge rocking guitar tone? In their place we had more introspective songs, with some social commentary in there and a plethora of almost clean Stratocaster tones that just didn’t seem to cut it.
Of course, all these years later I have grown up a lot and I now realise that the album is actually a superb piece of work that shows Adams in a different kind of artistic light and Keith Scott’s Fender tones are very much up there among my favourite tones of all time.
I absolutely love the album now! But it is a different beast – how will it stand up to being played in its entirety, especially with no audience for the band to feed off? Well, very well actually! The guitar tones seem to rock just a little harder than on the original album and the band put a ton of energy into the performance, with drummer Pat Steward and bassist Sol Walker rocking out throughout.
It’s good to see Bryan playing a bit of lead guitar on ‘Heat of the Night’ and my personal favourite from the album, ‘Hearts on Fire,’ rocks most delightfully. Even the more introspective tracks like ‘Victim of Love’ and ‘Remembrance Day’ seem to take on a new lease of life played by this iteration of the Bryan Adams band. The tracks on here may occasionally lack some of the striking immediacy of those on Cuts Like A Knife, Reckless or Waking Up The Neighbours, but they stand tall here and sound absolutely superb.
Finally we come to Waking Up The Neighbours. This is one of my favourite albums of all time and the original album contains pretty much everything that makes Bryan Adams so great: banging melodic pop-rock, delicate ballads, kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll, it’s all there, all wrapped up in a Mutt Lange production that just makes the whole thing sparkle with almost otherworldly brilliance.
Recorded live in front of a very enthusiastic audience (and rendered in full technicolour), this section of the DVD/Blu-Ray is absolutely superb and showcases this stunning album perfectly. Every member of the band plays out of his skin, with Keith Scott once again the star of the show with wall to wall great guitar work: melodic, emotive and never overly flash, the man is the epitome of the perfect guitar sideman. Adams’ vocals are stunning throughout – he still has that glorious rasp and has lost none of his range. Some of these songs are quite a challenge, but the old boy belts them out in quite some fashion.
You really cannot argue with the thunderous melodic mayhem of ‘Is Your Mama Gonna Miss You’, ‘Can’t Stop This Thing We Started’, ‘House Arrest’ and ‘There Will Never Be Another Tonight’. Then there is the Foreigner-esque ‘Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven’, the stunning AOR balladry of ‘Vanishing’ and of course the mega-hit ballad ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’ plus a whole host of other cracking songs too. Interestingly, the over-the-top multi-layered production of the original album is not missed here one iota and the band’s faithful arrangements of these classic tracks work perfectly.
I almost imagine this to be how the songs sounded when they first played them to Mutt Lange ahead of recording the album – slightly more raw, rough and ready (well, as ‘raw, rough and ready’ as Bryan Adams ever gets!) This is a masterclass live performance by an artist to whom the label ‘legendary’ can actually be justifiably used. There’s no rock-star behaviour, bravado or banter, just Bryan being Bryan, humbly and gently, and performing these songs like his life depends on it, with a band who rise to the occasion and match him every step of the way. Utterly brilliant!
The CDs in the set simply replicate the material on the DVD/Blu-Ray, with one CD for each of the albums presented and they make a fantastic listen as well. I think it’s a very cool package and pretty decent value too given that you get a DVD/Blu-Ray with three full albums recorded on it and CDs of each of those albums as well and all for under £30.
The vinyl package is a tad more, but still great value. Admittedly, it’s probably one for Bryan Adams fans rather than casual listeners as there are a lot of hits missing from albums not recorded on any of the nights in question. But as a fan of an artist, sometimes it’s nice to feel that said artist is presenting a package with the fans really in mind.
So if you are a fan of the man’s music, you really should buy this as it’s a quite wonderful piece of work! I honestly think I’ll play these live CDs of Cuts Like a Knife and Into The Fire as often as the original albums, which is a good indicator of how much I’ve enjoyed them thus far.
Also, if you like this package then you might like to know that Bryan Adams is back at the Royal Albert Hall in 2024 doing a similar thing with the albums Reckless, 18 Til I Die and So Happy It Hurts. Let’s hope they record these and present them in a boxed set like this too as they would go so well with this to provide a pretty definitive record of the man’s illustrious career!
Live At The Royal Albert Hall box set out now! https://bryanadams.tmstor.es/
