Entertainment
Bryan Adams Unplugged
By Gary Stephen Ross published Jun 1, 2008
Look who’s lined up on Burrard Street, waiting for the doors of St. Andrew’s–Wesley United Church to be opened. There’s weatherbabe Tamara Taggart and her musician hubby, Dave Genn. That’s local legend Red Robinson, and Attorney General Wally Oppal, and Mission Hill zillionaire Anthony von Mandl. Isn’t that Shark Club co-owner John Teti? And there’s White Spot honcho Ron Toigo. These are not people who typically wait in line—what has them queuing in the chilly weather? Bryan Adams has slipped into town to celebrate his mother’s 80th birthday at Le Crocodile, to check out his recording studio in Gastown, and—this night—to promote his new CD, 11, by playing an invite-only acoustic set in the church.
Inside the chapel, Adams—a whippet-thin vegan in black shirt and boots, with designer jeans that catch on his pelvic bones—is already participating, not altogether happily, in a Q & A with three dozen members of the media. Adams has always had a slightly edgy relationship with the press. It shows in his faint annoyance at the lame Qs (“What does Vancouver mean to you?” “Where do you get your inspiration?”), the banality of which the publicist has pretty much assured by warning us that inquiries about anything other than his musical career or the new album are strictly off-limits. It shows in his terse answers, and his impatience to get the hell out of the chapel and onto the stage.
Adams’s personal life is carefully guarded; for the past 16 years he’s lived in London, strategically hobnobbing with supermodels and venturing off every month to do 10 concerts all over the world while pursuing a parallel career as a photographer whose work has been exhibited widely and appeared in the pages of Vanity Fair and Vogue. Having sold some 65 million albums, been nominated for dozens of Genies and Junos and Grammys and Oscars, and played road warrior for the past three decades, he’s built a huge fan base and a dazzling net worth. Which is to say he makes music not because he has to but because he likes to.
