Ottawa Bluesfest
@ Le Breton Flats, Ottawa
Day 1 || July 5, 2018
Bryan Adams
The first day of Bluesfest is a real hit or miss when it comes to the crowds, especially when it’s on a weeknight at the end of a record breaking heat wave. With Bryan Adams being featured in the headlining slot on the first night this year, the turnout was definitely large, although the crowd’s interaction was pretty disappointing. Adams really had to work to get the crowd to interact with him and that’s quite shocking, seeing as he is one of the most celebrated names in Canadian music.
While he’s played Ottawa many times and put on a spectacular show at the NHL Classic 100 just last year, Ottawa has shown its native son much warmer welcomes than they did last night. Despite the crowd not giving him much ammunition, he still put on a well oiled and personal set that ran through most of his fan favourite hit songs. The screens surrounding the stage and in the middle, placed as a backdrop, were in sync with every song – most notably for “Summer of ‘69” with the lyrics tattooed onto a woman’s body and “18 ‘til I Die” with the the track title following his words on screen. With a catalogue like his, it’s hard to fit everything into one set, but it was undoubtedly surprising that he didn’t play “In The Heat Of The Night”. The encore was quite unique, as he played mostly covers. He came back onto stage with “I Fought The Law”, and continued into covers of older rockabilly and traditional irish folk songs. Of course fans didn’t stay quiet during songs like “Born to Run” and “Summer of ‘69”, or when he made shoutouts to Ontario – but overall, Ottawa needs to wake up for the rest of Bluesfest and kick it into the high gear that usually breaks out as soon as the festival starts!
Set List
Ultimate Love
Can’t Stop This Thing We Started
Run to You
Go Down Rockin’
Heaven
It’s Only Love
Cloud #9
You Belong to Me
Summer Of ‘69
If Ya Wanna Be Bad Ya Gotta Be Good
Here I Am
When You’re Gone
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
Back to You
Somebody
The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You
Cuts Like A Knife
18 ‘til I Die
I’m Ready
Brand New Day
Encore
I Fought The Law (The Crickets Cover)
C’mon Everybody
Whiskey in the Jar (traditional Irish cover)
Straight From The Heart
All For Love (Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting cover)
(Photo Credits: Lucy Sky)
Photos
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Festival Links
SPILL BOOK REVIEW: JOE MATERA – LOUDER THAN WORDS: BEYOND THE BACKSTAGE PASS
