CALGARY -- If there's such a thing as a Canuck rock jukebox, Bryan Adams is it.
If he threw in a couple of Tragically Hip songs, and maybe some Guess Who into his repertoire, you could make it official.
Of course, the government no longer considers him 100% pure Canadiana, but the Kingston, Ont.-born, London, Eng.-based superstar and his many, many meat 'n' potatoes hits have been an integral part of this nation's rock radio stations for the better part of the past 21/2 decades.
Especially lately, when Adams' live shows -- in the absence of a brand-new studio rock record in over five years -- have had to rely upon the tried and true.
He did the same thing last night at the Saddledome in front of about 11,500 fans, and more than likely, most of those wouldn't offer up much by way of complaint having heard, and singing along to, faves such as 18 'Til I Die, Back To You, Summer of '69, and It's Only Love.
The problem is that performance-wise, Adams uses that familiarity as a crutch.
Despite his musical proclamation early on that There Will Never Be Another Tonight, his show spoke to the contrary, seeming like any other evening with him and his band on this brief western Canadian swing -- or during any one of his shows in the past five or six years, for that matter.
His first words to his fans were brief and generic, and came 15 minutes into his set. And the performances of those many hits were mechanically affable and, if you've ever seen him before, nothing special.
Even when he separately brought a couple of fans on stage to dance and sing, or brought the lights up and vaguely mentioned his first and last time in Calgary -- ironically stating he had so much to tell us about what had happened since then, and then not even trying -- they were just more well-used devices that came across as hollow.
It was hard to tell if what he was doing and singing came straight from the heart or from a marketing standpoint -- to keep his name out there before delivering a new album sometime next year.
Whatever the case, it was if he was going through the motion, missing the emotion that truly would have made this human jukebox come to life.
Maybe to compete with Adams' iconic status -- or at least offer a humble prelude to it -- Colin James kicked off his opening set with one of his more memorable hits, Five Long Years.
It was an inspired choice as the familiarity of it no doubt helped hook in much of the audience, which was incredibly almost entirely present and seated for his 45-minute showcase.
James and his band, which features recent collaborator and former Odds member Craig Northey, stuck mostly to the party blues rockers that have been his bread and butter, including Voodoo Thing and Just Came Back.
JAM! Rating: 4.5 out of 5
