11

I'm in Vancouver, Canada, again for a few days and making the most of it. Summer and the glorious weather had finally ended when I got here on Wednesday, but it's back to sunshine today, albeit somewhat cooler.

As usual the reason for visiting here is to see family again, but the real reason is that in June I bought tickets to see Bryan Adams at the Vancouver Orpheum Theatre. A small, classy, and personal venue for such a great performance. The four of us had pretty good seats and a very nice view of "An evening with Bryan Adams." I had a bid on some special seats that came with a post concert meeting opportunity with Bryan and some autographed bits and bytes. Unfortunately I was in Vegas (unfortunately losing big time) when the bidding was taking place and it was a pain in the ass to keep checking on my US Blackberry. My Canadian iPhone would have been useful but it was in San Francisco. Hmmm... iPhone, never leave home without it!

Back to Bryan... What a fantastic show he put on. Right from the go he had us going with an older song from the Reckless album, Run to you. I was still a teenager when Adams released that album and I've been an avid fan of his since. One very nice touch to last night's performance was how much he talked to the audience. He shared a few personal experiences an even gave some explanations for the song's inspirations. I learned a few things. Bryan even joked with the crowd a bit and had us laughing a few times.

Overall he put on a very good show. I enjoyed all the songs. Some were classics, some were new (from his album 11) and some I had never heard of. He did a great blues type song dedicated to Ray Charles. Bryan used only an acoustic guitar, a harmonica and his voice. He had a piano player, Gary Briet, who joined for a number of the songs and Jim Vallance even played for two songs.

I left the show with a big smile on my face and a huge motivation to see him perform again... I don't mean his next tour but I mean catching him again on THIS tour. I did a quick check last night of where he'll be in the next two months and I will try to meet up with his tour again when I'm traveling. Mrs. Wealthy thinks I'm crazy but going again with different friends will be like a whole new experience, even it he plays the same songs. Another nice touch was that Bryan Adams does a great job of personalizing each for the town he's in. It was just that much more personal as Vancouver is where he grew up. I even got to cross paths with him a few times as a teenager.