Earlier this year Canadian rocker Bryan Adams took up residency in the genteel surroundings of The Royal Albert Hall for three very special concerts. Performing a classic album, in it’s entirety, on each night found the man in great form, backed by a stellar band and playing to an excitable crowd. It’s a heady mixture and thankfully the tapes and video were rolling to capture those three nights, and they now get released as Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2024. Spread over several discs, this set bottles the excitement of those shows and is certain to take its place in the hallowed halls of classic live albums.

Originally released in 1984, Reckless became a commercial juggernaut that bullied its way to the top of the charts in several counties and broke all sorts of sales records. In the UK this album was raided for single after single, yet such was the strength of the songwriting that any of its ten cuts could have been culled for 7” action. It’s a certified classic album and as such, people have a strong emotional attachment to it. Therefore, it’s a risky business performing Reckless in complete form and Bryan circumnavigates this problem by taking a few liberties with the running order. It’s not a facsimile, a good live album shouldn’t be (we have the studio counterpart for that) but long term fans needn’t worry, there’s been no radical departure only the tracks are now sprinkled with some of that live magic dust. This album includes some of the cuts which were left of the original album (‘Reckless’, ‘Let Me Down Easy’) and evidences what a rich seam Bryan was mining back in ‘84. A hair-standing-on-end version of ‘Heaven’ and an amped up ‘She’s Only When She’s Dancing’ makes this an essential, and I’d argue definitive, version of Reckless.

While Reckless was universally-acclaimed, Bryan Adam’s 1996 album 18 Til I Die divided music critics and veered wildly between triumphant praise and downright hostility and on the strength of this recording, that’s puzzling. Like the first disc, Bryan has some fun with the tracklisting and presents the album in a whole new light. Song for song, it’s just as strong as Reckless as the opening one-two punch of ‘18 Til I Die’ and ‘Do To You’ amply proves and if you want to know why these songs connected with the fans on a deep level, you need look/listen to the crowd singing along to ‘Let’s Make A Night To Remember’. Without Robert John “Mutt” Lange’s precise, painstaking production 18 Til I Die becomes a more organic affair in the live environment with cuts such as ‘It Ain’t A Party…If You Can’t Come Round’ having a punchy feel that was lost on the original. While the critics might have been divided over 18 Til I Die, it’s ultimately the fans who count and on the strength of this performance, it’s a winner.

Bringing us bang up-to-date (aside from Bryan’s re-recorded work), So Happy It Hurts was Adams’ perfect rebuttal to the global pandemic and found him on fine form. Only time will tell if his fifteenth studio album will have the same kind of cultural impact as Reckless or Cuts Like A Knife, but judging by this rendition, time’s a mere formality. Due to lockdown restrictions, the majority of instruments on So Happy It Hurts were recorded by Bryan, so it is intriguing to hear how they sound with a full band and the only word which can describe opening shot ‘Kick Ass’ (and, indeed, this whole disc) is “joyous”. There’s an effervescence radiating from these grooves, a love of life and joie de vivre that’s fairly intoxicating and it has certainly galvanised the crowd (always a key ingredient of a live album) and they make their presence felt over the course of twelve rumbustious tracks. So Happy It Hurts…indeed.

Both the vinyl and CD sets contain a Blu-Ray featuring concert films of all three shows. Loving directed by award-winning film maker Dick Carruthers, this isn’t the type of manic, epilepsy-inducing live film that many bands opt for, rather the camera angles change at a steady pace, in much the same way that your eyes would at an actual gig. Dedicating each night to a specific album was such a great idea and the knock on effect is that this is an intriguing set. It means you can sit through the two-and-a-half hours of audio (or visual) in one sitting and without your attention flagging. It’s certainly true that you can have too much of a good thing, but personally I can’t get enough of Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2024.

• Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2024 is released via Bad Records on 15th November 2024.
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Track List:

Disc One: Reckless

1. One Night Love Affair
2. Somebody
3. Reckless
4. Run To You
5. Kids Wanna Rock
6. Heaven
7. Let Me Down Easy
8. She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin’
9. It’s Only Love
10. Long Gone
11. Ain’t Gonna Cry
12. Summer Of ‘69

Disc Two: 18 Til I Die

1. 18 Til I Die
2. Do To You
3. Let’s Make A Night To Remember
4. (I Wanna Be) Your Underwear
5. Star
6. It Ain’t A Party…If You can’t Come Round
7. You’re Still Beautiful To Me
8. I’ll Always Be Right There
9. We’re Gonna Win
10. I Think About You
11. The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You
12. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman

Disc Three: So Happy It Hurts

1. Kick Ass
2. On The Road
3. Just About Gone
4. Let’s Do This
5. Just Like Me, Just Like You
6. I’ve Been Looking For You
7. Never Gonna Rain
8. You Lift Me Up
9. Always Have Always Will
10. I Ain’t Worth Shit Without You
11. So Happy It Hurts
12. These Are The Moments That Make Up My Life