Ah, I know he's hopelessly middle-of-the-road. He's never been very innovative, some of his lyrics make me wince, I wouldn't be upset if he was banned from using pan pipes, his videos feature far too many skinny, pouting models, and he is Just Not Cool, but oh... I had a blast at the Bryan Adams concert last night.

I had a moment of weakness and bought tickets, months back (and nearly forgot all about it; it would've been a right arse if I'd missed it). I was a big fan, some years back, and this one just... tempted me. I got the eyebrow from my friend, but that's okay because I have plenty of Michael Jackson blackmail material on her. Bryan's just made an album with some of his old pals, see – all the old, familiar names are listed again in the thankyous: Jody, Jim, Bruce, Mutt, Beanbag... Plus, it was his birthday (the crowd sang 'Happy Birthday'). Forty-nine – which doesn't seem so old to me, nowadays. He was running around, same as ever. It's that healthy vegan diet. Although apparently he's always been quite obnoxiously full of energy.



The concert was at the O2 Arena, which is a vast cavern of a place, but when A and I walked in, Bryan was right there, a few yards away. We were late arriving (stopped to have a proper meal: I don't rush to catch support acts, plus it was happy hour and the Brambles were flowing), and he'd started the concert on a mini stage towards the back of the floor, in the middle of the crowd – just him and an acoustic guitar. Love it. He always does that, performs some of the show on a smaller stage at the other end, in amongst everyone, and it brings a whole different energy to the gig – it feels smaller, more intimate, even though it's really not. Then he made his way through the crowd (and dear god there were a lot of people, right up to the rafters), round the edge of the seating, up a stepladder, and onto the main stage, where the band were waiting.



They did all the favourites – practically every song from the album Reckless, the Robin Hood song of course (and mobile phones have since replaced lighters as the thing to wave – I approve: lighters are dangerous, and the cheap plastic ones melt and burn your hand), and various songs from all throughout his career, including some new ones I really liked. She's Only Happy When She's Dancin' gave me the same feeling as it used to when I thought it encompassed everything about my life. Summer Of '69 got probably the biggest reaction – it's one I don't love, except at concerts, when it's just perfect. He joked around with the crowd, did some truly dreadful dancing, cheered Obama, brought a member of the audience and a special guest star (Mel C) onstage to sing with him, and generally did, as A remarked after, all the things you should do in a rock concert. Keith Scott, lead guitarist, has been practicing his moves, I think – he was twiddling away with very impressive Brian May-like speed. They played for about two hours, then gave their bows and left. After a couple of minutes, Bryan came back for an encore, on his own with an acoustic guitar, on the main stage but not looking daunted by the several-thousand. Looking, in fact, like he was loving every minute. He did another half-dozen songs, including one of my favourite B-sides, When The Night Comes (which I only have on cassette, dammit).



I've not been to one of his concerts since 1994, but it hadn't changed – in a good way. There was loads of energy, the crowd was really positive and enthusiastic and on their feet, singing and dancing. This was the last show of a tour, and it had quite a celebratory feel to it. I think people were in the mood to celebrate, given the American election result and the fact that it was Bonfire Night. There was a huge age range – it's definitely got older since I last went, but there were quite a few teenagers, too. I saw someone with the T-shirt I own and never wear outdoors because on the front, in foot-high yellow letters, it says "69 – JUST DO IT!!!".

A bought me a (much less embarrassing) T-shirt. It was the first big rock concert he'd ever been to. He's been to plenty of smaller gigs of various kinds – I went with him to see the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, not long ago, and I've gone with him to umpteen Sigue Sigue Sputnik gigs, which are always good fun, but he's not really into more mainstream rock music. He enjoyed it, though. It was nice to have someone to sway with to Heaven – I think 17-year-old me would be pretty pleased by that.



Then we dragged ourselves back to Oxford on the 12:05am, through so much fog and darkness that I only knew we were passing over the (very high above sea level) Chilterns when my ears popped. The driver went very slowly, for which I was profoundly grateful; A and I sat upstairs, at the front, and at some points, out in the countryside with no streetlamps, the only things visible were the cat's eyes in the immediate vicinity. We passed some blue flashing lights on the other side of the road, but made it home okay ourselves, sometime past 2am, whereupon A put the recycling out as quietly as possible, and we fell into bed.

And today I am SO tired. It's lucky my phone started buzzing a low battery alert this morning, because I fell asleep again after the alarm went off. Fortunately, I was able to helpfully offer to type up someone's minutes for them, with the benefit for me that I can sit in an office on my own and listen to my mp3 player – on which I put, yesterday, a lot of a certain person's music...