A fan who kept yelling "Summer of '69!" started to annoy Bryan Adams during his concert on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. "Have you ever been to a rock concert before?" Mr. Adams asked patiently. "As the show progresses, the songs come that you recognize."
Mr. Adams doesn't do anything that hasn't been done at a rock concert before. He strums his electric guitar, strolls around the stage, embraces his band mates and jumps off a drum riser; he belts the words in an earnest rasp of a voice. The audience, filled with teen-age girls, happily does its part by singing choruses, holding up the flames of cigarette lighters during ballads and squealing when he approaches the edge of the stage. On Sunday, as the fan continued to shout, Mr. Adams brought him on stage; Seth from Long Island sang a few lines of "The Best Is Yet To Come," doing his best Bryan Adams impression.
Mr. Adams raises generic rock from a job to a vocation. He and his collaborators, primarily Jim Vallance and Robert (Mutt) Lange, thrive on commonplace sentiments, stripped of specific details: "I just can't stand another lonely night" or "All I want is you" or "You're the only one I've ever loved" or "I've got to feel your touch." Mr. Adams makes million-selling songs by portraying a virile nice guy. He might make noise at a party in "House Arrest" or let lust carry him away in "Run to Me," but he'll also promise undying devotion and sound like he means it, as in "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," which sold 15 million copies worldwide.
The words arrive in three-chord rockers or hymnlike power ballads that draw almost all their ideas from a small group of English and Midwestern rockers: the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, the Who, Bob Seger and John Cougar Mellencamp, with a touch of Bruce Springsteen. The songs are well-made, from opening guitar hook to sing-along chorus. And after more than a decade of Top 10 hits, Mr. Adams has made a trademark of his own facelessness; he is heroically ordinary.
His Madison Square Garden concert was notable for what wasn't there: no choreography or other visual gimmicks, no superfluous musicians, just a five-man band knocking out one hit after another. Copying U2, Mr. Adams had a second stage in the middle of the arena; there, he and the band played 1950's songs like "C'mon Everybody" and "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover," while the crowd surged forward until dancing teen-agers were permitted to overrun the stage. The squeals reached a new peak when Sting, done with his concert next door at the Paramount, arrived to sing "All for Love," his duet with Mr. Adams from the soundtrack to "The Three Musketeers." There was enough theatrical sincerity to bring the house down.
Photo: Bryan Adams on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. (Ebet Roberts)
