Bryan Adams: Review of So Happy It Hurts at the Brighton Centre

Bryan Adams was supposed to tour the UK in 2020 with his album Shine a Light, but then the world got shut down.

The rocker instead spent that time writing another album, and the result was So Happy It Hurts – the show he brought to the Brighton Centre on Friday night.

Thankfully, it was worth the wait.

We’ve seen the Canadian star play a couple of times before in the last decade, and it was evident the global pandemic has done nothing to diminish his ability or appeal.

In a two-hour gig, he played hit, after hit, after hit.

With 16 albums’ worth of music to choose from, there wasn’t a song played that almost everyone in the crowd didn’t seem to know word-for-word.

Classics like I Do It For You, Summer of ‘69 and Heaven were the biggest crowd-pleasers, but others like Run To You and Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman were right up there, too.

We did get to hear Shine a Light, the title song for the previous untoured album, but it was the songs from the latest record that I really enjoyed.

He played the title track, complete with a full-size blow-up car flying around the arena, and in the encore we got to hear Always Have, Always Will and These Are The Moments That Make Up My Life, the latter of which really resonated with me, and almost had this sap in tears!

After such a long time without live music, it really is a joy to be back at concerts – particularly when watching such a master at work.