Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

A night on cloud number 9
By Shanaka Amerasinghe
When ‘Everything I Do (I do it for you)’ was played to the capacity crowd at the CR & FC grounds last Tuesday night, through the ecstatic shrieks of the more frenzied fans, I found myself remembering that the Robin Hood movie came out when I was in year 9. Needless to say the song was a much bigger hit in this country than the movie. But the amazing phenomenon is that 11 years later, the track creates the same euphoria. The staying power of Bryan Adams is his biggest asset.

The impact of the man on Sri Lanka was evident by the large crowd. Considering that it was a Tuesday night, the enthusiasm of music lovers must be condoned. The queue for the Rs. 1,000 tickets (it’s all some of us can afford), when I joined it at 7.45 p.m. stretched from the main CR & FC gate, to Torrington Junction, and was at least five people wide. It moved though, to the credit of the organisers, and we were in just before the show began at 9 p.m. Given that this is Sri Lanka, an hour’s delay for an event of this magnitude is acceptable. The excuse of course was that, “Mr. Adams wants everyone in before he starts playing, because he doesn’t want to deprive anyone…”

After the monumental struggle to get in, it was impossible to verify how many people couldn’t actually get in. Judging by the hordes behind me in the queue I would assume that some may have turned away – although I sincerely hope everyone did get in. Before moving onto the concert proper, Showdiff Events Worldwide and Rapport Global Events, the organisers of this event, while being heaped with much praise for organising it and bringing down an artiste in the calibre of Bryan Adams must also be castigated for the obvious overselling of tickets. While all tickets were reportedly ‘completely sold out’, it does not mean that the venue can house the amount of tickets sold. More professionalism and less profit – mindedness may have left many patrons less the worse for wear.

Having gotten past the problem of actually getting in, the ground itself was ‘heaven’. The breeze thankfully blew most of the night, easing the plight of the 20,000 odd souls packed into the paddock. The crowd was carefree. Another thing that struck me on surveying the sea of heads was the energy generating itself from the crowd. This energy we have often seen overflow into aggression, vulgarity and the like. However, I think it is safe to say that not a single incident, or at least one worthy of report, by way of a fight, drunkenness or the harassing of females took place.

For the first time, barring of course cricket matches, there was united, unmitigated adoration for the man in the middle – Bryan Adams. He too played the part to the end. Coming back for two encores he gave the crowd what they wanted.

The lack of an opening act, and the fact that the band members were all part of the Adams’ entourage, went a long way in preventing the palls of mediocrity that sometimes invade these shows. The sounds were professional, and we had no broken guitar strings and no long delays between songs. It was non-stop. It was fab. He had obviously done his research before he came here, and realised that this was an unashamedly pop-oriented nation. He stuck therefore to his mainstream hits.

It is pointless to run through his entire repertoire, but the whole programme was brilliantly received, while special mention must be made of the acoustic version of Summer of ‘69, which is undoubtedly his biggest hit in this neck of the woods. The almost cult backing he has in this country was even more manifest, not only by the largeness of the crowd, but the fact that everybody knew the words. Everybody. Given the diversity of the crowd which included parents, teachers, professionals, students and little kids this is saying much indeed. The variety of Bryan Adams’ pop-rock genre is that it is easy to listen to without being in your face.

The highest point of the night was the ‘atmosphere’. Seeing people on top of each other’s shoulders, laughing, screaming, shouting ‘take me! take me!’, when he called for a volunteer, shows that conservative, self-conscious crowds are a thing of the past. At least for a while 20,000 individuals took united refuge on cloud number 9. A good time, as they say, was had by all. Here’s to more sustenance for the entertainment starved masses.

Heavy duty
Eight tonnes of equipment for the Bryan Adams gig was flown in from overseas while the rest of the technical apparatus were outsourced locally. Mr Saty Watson of Watson MVM (Pvt) Ltd., the company that handled the equipment from this end, says that except for the stage equipment and sound and light controllers, the entire speaker and amplifier system for the gig was provided via local suppliers.

It was a collective effort with sound being supplied by three or four companies, while light equipment was supplied by a couple of others. According to Mr Watson, approximately a 100-member unit was involved in setting up equipment throughout the concert. As for security for the gig, he said that in addition to the 400 police officers on duty for the day, there were 80 other security officials on call as well.

Journeys under the stars
There are some events that grab you by the scruff of the neck, slap you around a little bit and under the threat of a further knee in the groin demand that you attend them. The Bryan Adams concert held at the CR & FC grounds on Tuesday night was not such an event. But I went anyway – I didn’t want to, as a friend put it, ‘Look back on this day 25 years from now and think about it as a chance missed to see Bryan Adams in concert.’

As it turned out, I was not the only one. The streets were lined with fans. Inside, there was such an air of expectation in the crowd that even someone as moderately enthused about the whole affair as I, was swept away.

Shortly afterwards, the man himself appeared and went through his repertoire of songs from the classics, to the all time favourites, to more modern music. The stage and screens could have been a bit higher, the sound was not brilliant and those at the back of the audience had a poor auditory experience to go with the match-men they were bound to see on stage from that distance, but what was most important about the concert was that its greatness came from the atmosphere Bryan Adams created.

It wasn’t that his show was electrifyingly fabulous. It didn’t need to be. That night, under the stars we all had our emotions sculpted. It was a journey through sentiment and nostalgia. How else could the biggest roar of the night be for the Summer Of ‘69, when in 1969 most of those cheering weren’t even a glint in their parents’ eyes?

Together we journeyed the highs and lows of Bryan Adams’ career and life in general through his music; we laughed and reflected, head-banged and swayed together. For those few moments, a ground full of people took an emotional journey and Adams was showing the way. I went because of a regret I may have in a quarter of a century. But I stayed for those moments in my and all of our lives’ histories.

Unbelievable
I still can’t quite put my finger on it. There I was at the Bryan Adams concert, I turned around, and suddenly it was Summer of 69. Endless parties - AL bashes, birthday bashes, girls’ nights, rock parties, days when I was just high on life, nights when I banged my head to kingdom come, came back to me. So many ‘moments in time’ of my life happened when a DJ played that song. And now, he was there. No, I mean, he was there.

I wanted to head-bang, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t (for once). I stood marvelling at the fact that Bryan Adams was singing my song. It almost seemed like it was just him and me. That’s the thing that I can’t get over. It was a jam-packed audience, but I felt like he was singing to me. It was February 10, 2004, but for me, it was the summer of 69.

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