Forever Crushing On Bryan Adams
Rekindling the magic in Miami with two ‘80s icons
My wife Melody has been in love with Bryan Adams for 40 years.
Her dad played Bryan Adams songs for her when she was a toddler in London. Right around the time me and some guys from school took Tracy Burns and Michelle Melnick to see Byran open for Journey at the Rosemont Horizon in June 1983.
I didn’t know then that I would become close friends with the fellow who co-wrote all of Bryan’s best loved — and just plain best — songs. I am not always on Jim Vallance’s holiday card list, politics playing a role in getting me ghosted from time to time. But I really love the guy. And despite my many sins, when Jim heard we were going to see Bryan Adams last Sunday at the Hard Rock in Miami, he insisted we go backstage because he knows how much Melody crushes on Bryan.
Sure enough, she giggled and gushed and the whole scene was just so nice. I got a chance to tell him I admire his photography, and managed to keep to myself how much better I thought his hits with Jim Vallance are compared to his hits with Mutt “Never Met a Song I Couldn’t Overproduce (And Add a Co-writing Credit for Myself)” Lange.
Seeing Bryan play with a stripped-down band was a revelation. He has essentially become the band’s bass player, except for several wonderful songs of just Bryan on acoustic guitar. I felt a new appreciation for Keith Scott, the longtime guitar player who had always struck me as a competent but uninspiring player. Last night, he did inspire me, with tone and taste and restraint, and even some flashes of style on flamenco guitar. Drummer Pat Steward is rock-solid — an unflashy performer whose Phil Rudd style backbeat anchors the whole operation.
But the real treat was how well Bryan’s voice has held up. Unlike a Bon Jovi or Roger Daltrey, whose soaring high notes are bound to deteriorate as he ages, Bryan has always worked that kind of scratchy Bob Seger/Rod Stewart/Don Henley voice. So it actually gets richer as he ages, and he clearly takes care of his instrument, as he’s in perfect shape.
I’ve shared many times in many places my belief that Jim Vallance is pretty much the songwriter of the 1980s. Not just because of the Adams catalog, but also his hits with Kiss, Aerosmith, Rick Springfield and others (at that 1983 show, Bryan played the Prism hit “Don’t Let Him Know,” another early Adams-Vallance composition). But it’s that perfect marriage of song and performer that you really experience at a Bryan Adams concert.
Just such good vibes all around. He did both his part and the Tina Turner parts of “It’s Only Love,” the can’t-miss hook of “Heaven” and an excellent version of my very favorite Adams-Vallance song “Run To You.” (If you don’t understand what a great song that is, please listen to the stripped-down Lou Barlow version.) I have less patience for “Everything I Do” and its “too korny even for KK” lyrics, but I begrudgingly respect almost any No. 1 record. He ably turned the crowd pleasers “Summer of 69″ and “Cuts Like a Knife” into the sing-along anthems they were made to be.
I also appreciate that Adams has continued to record and includes those songs in the set, and a few hold up. I wouldn’t put “Kick Ass” or “18 til I Die” on a level with even the worst songs on Reckless. But “So Happy It Hurts” comes closer and I admire Adams for declining the temptation to make this entirely a nostalgia show. And watching all these 50+ year olds shake their asses and smooch their partners and even pass a joint around — way more transgressive in legalized 2025 than in 1983 for some reason — was such a pleasure.
The opener was a treat, as well. Pat Benatar has become Benatar + Giraldo. The 42-year marriage of the operatic crooner to her guitar player, producer and songwriting partner makes them “band name official” as they tour with the hits.
Benatar’s amazing mezzo soprano has gone a little more the Bon Jovi route, and believe me I’m not criticizing. In my Facebook chat with some high school friends who are also fans, I noted that she’s retained many times more of her vocal range at 72 than I have at 57. But those choruses in “Shadows of the Night” were ambitious in 1982, let alone 2025.
I appreciated the songwriting much more than I expected. “Promises in the Dark,” the dance beat and synth hooks of “Love is a Battlefield” and the metal underpinnings behind “Heartbreaker,” all killer. (Although I couldn’t stop picturing Seinfeld-version Steinbrenner mangling the lyrics). I also really respect that they didn’t play “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”
Her willingness to disappoint the audience by declining to perform their stupidest song exhibits some punk rock cred I wouldn’t have predicted.
A great night in Miami and the best part was seeing Melody — and a couple thousand other ladies who were born after the summer that Bryan made famous — appreciate their girlhood crush.
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