The best of him

I am a huge huge Bryan Adams fan and with what excited anticipation I had been waiting for his live performance. The tickets had been bought a month in advance. There is something about Bryan Adams' voice that tugs at my heart when he renders his love songs ! I am not a giddy headed romantic but I make exception for Bryan Adams :)

We (BP, AC, RM, RT, TK, GR & wife (I keep forgetting her name) reached the venue (Palace Grounds) around 6:00 pm, but the serpentine queue at the entrance ensured that we could enter only around 7:30. We had the front section tickets … bang in front of the stage!

The winners of the Campus Rock Idols 2005 were the opening act. mmm..the less said about them the better. The sound system was probably not in full blast which made their performance look a lot worse. They were booed off in about 15 minutes.

The crowd inside had already started growing impatient having to watch the silly advertisements on the huge side screens. Suddenly around 8:00 pm, the entire Bryan Adams band jumped together onto the stage and started rocking. The crowd too broke into a hysteria with the female majority breaking out into shrieks of ‘I love you Bryan’ (moi included) and catcalls and whistles.

He started the evening with Room Service from his new album, and thereafter it was song after song of soulful numbers from his long list of chartbusters. He showcased plenty of talent to mesmerize the 50,000 strong crowd. He could easily juggle between 5 different guitars – 2 acoustics, 2 electric and a Bass guitar, as well as playing the harmonica in between.

As always, Bryan pointed out to a girl in the crowd and called her up on stage to sing Baby when you’re gone along with him. She introduced herself as Shweta from AP before breaking into a nervous rendition of the song, which was understandable considering the humungous crowd.

Someone next to me fainted. Maybe outta exhaustion, maybe out of excitement. She was carted away and I got some more elbow space. The crowds were superb. Close to 30,000 or more. And it was as if Adams was playing for the crowds to sing. Once the first notes for a song were given, the crowd started singing, and then Adams had a look like hey lemme sing... Some group choir it was!

Expectedly, the strongest cheers from the guys came for the 2 numbers- “18 Till I Die” and “Summer of ’69". Other amazing numbers, he crooned were Run to You, Cuts Like a Knife, The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me, Back to You, Best of Me, Can’t Stop this Thing we Started, Heaven, Cloud # 9, Let’s Make a Night To Remember, Straight from the Heart, and of course Please Forgive Me. Every single song a masterpiece! The guy sang for more than 2 hours non-stop.

There was one point when he was singing one of his slow songs, Everything I do, I got goose bumps listening to him. His soulful voice has that magical quality. Overall, the concert was rockinggg..!! !As usual!! Bryan Adams rocked and we rolled :P

The last song Straight From the Heart was a beauty as he asked everyone to take out their cell phones and wave them in the dark while singing along, and the scene when viewed on the huge screens was like millions of bluish fireflies swaying to the music.

Well, it ended up being a superb concert. To top it off, we stumbled upon on a great restaurant, Bangalore Bistro on the way back and had some nice salads and continental food. :-)