Live At Budokan

Three years after the release of 1998s On a Day Like Today, Bryan Adams had not gotten around to completing a new collection, so he and his record company, A&M, kept the pipeline supplied with product, releasing the 2001 compilation The Best of Me and the DVD Live at Slane Castle. By 2003, there still didnt seem to be a new album in sight, so A&M pressed up a 2000 concert Adams had performed at the Budokan arena in Tokyo that had been broadcast on Japanese television, releasing both a CD/DVD package and a DVD-only version. On the latter, his fourth live recording in the last eight years (counting 1995s Live! Live! Live! and 1997s MTV Unplugged CD and DVD), Adams turns in a bare-bones show. Its just him, on bass and vocals, Keith Scott on guitar, and Mickey Curry on drums, all of them decked out in white T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers and playing white instruments on a bare stage. All that white gives the lighting designer a chance to throw some interesting patterns on the trio, but thats it as far as staging goes. The trim, acne-scarred, forty-ish frontman comes off as an unadorned rocker, his catchy tunes very much in the tradition of guitar-dominated pop/rock dating back to the 60s. Occasionally, he slows things down for one of his many romantic ballads. Just when sameness is setting in, he invites an audience member up to take over Mel Cs part on "When Youre Gone," and the moment is both touching and awkward. But for the most part, its song-song-song, and unless the viewer is a dyed-in-the-wool Adams fan, things drag long before the end. The 22-song main set, running 98 minutes, is augmented by four "bonus tracks" adding another quarter of an hour. [Live at the Budokan was also released as a DVD/CD package, containing a CD that featured 15 highlights from the 26-track DVD.] ~ William Ruhlmann