Bryan Adams review: Canadian rocker rolls out the hits at 3Arena

Some people, who treat music appreciation as a game of one-upmanship and really need to enjoy life more, will tell you that Bryan Adams isn’t cool. Thankfully, none of them were in the 3Arena on Tuesday night. The sensible folk who were came for a rock'n’roll party and that’s exactly what they got.

Adams has more hits than two copies of ABBA Gold. When he walked on stage, early as he had much to do, the noise could have knocked down a reinforced wall around Jericho. He promised, with his first song, to ‘Kick Ass’, and that’s exactly what he did.

If you grew up in even the same county as a radio, you already known 95% of these songs. Marvel at the near-perfect key change in ‘Can’t Stop This Thing We Started’ which he immediately outdoes with ‘Somebody’, the evening’s first cut from 1984’s Reckless, an album that rivals Thriller in the every-track’s-a-single stakes. If your head wasn’t nodding, your neck was probably in a brace.

Songs that young pretenders would sacrifice a leg for, like ‘Cuts Like A Knife’ (the best na-na-na since ‘Hey Jude’),  and the audience-requested ‘One Night Love Affair’, are built on riffs so dependable, you’d let them rewire your house. Wonder why we don’t hear power ballads anymore? It’s because Adams perfected the art with ‘Heaven’, although he, unfortunately, speeds it up a tonight which docks him a mark, although it’s still great.

His band are as tight as a mountain road with special mention to guitarist Keith Scott, the Vancouver Van Halen, who played Keith to Adams’ harmonica-blowing Mick as they Midnight Ramblered up ‘Go Down Rockin’ and left jaws on the floor during ‘It’s Only Love’.

Yes, the Tina Turner medley was pure fish-in-a-barrel shooting but Adams’ aim was of such pinpoint accuracy, he could probably qualify for the Olympics. And talking of sport, you’re unlikely to witness a better one-two punch than ‘Run To You’ with that guitar break and ‘Summer of ‘69’ with a bridge that makes the Danyang-Kunshan look flimsy.

Even Robin Hood serenade ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’, which you’ve every right to disparage because I too remember when it was number one for about a decade and a half, was glorious with Adams singing his backside off as every voice in the hall, some with only scant awareness of the concepts of pitch and melody, joined in.

And that’s Adam’s other masterstroke. He makes the show about the crowd, not him. The camera goes into the throng multiple times, focusing on faces young and not so young, falling in love with the Canadian Casanova all over again and having a night they’ll be blabbing about for weeks to unfortunates who foolishly weren’t there. What could be cooler than that?