Live! Live! Live!

Bryan Adams never went in for the standard rock star poses, preferring to stand alone in white T-shirts and jeans and let his unpretentious, modest mid-tempo husky-voiced rock tunes speak for themselves, this at a time when the video-age of the 1980s was promoting spandexed hair-metal groups and trendy New Wave bands with funny haircuts. Adams was a songcrafter who relied on collaborating with other writers to sharpen his work for maximum effect. This live album proves that while Adams may be a modest personality, he puts everything he has into his material. From the first notes of “She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin’,” Adams is fully committed. If his studio albums have an ‘80s radio-friendly production sheen, these live recordings are scruffier, pointing up a strong commitment to giving his audience what they paid to see: honest, faithful renditions of the songs they’ve committed to memory. The ensuing years have made “Summer of ‘69” even more remote, but “Heaven,” “Cuts Like a Knife,” and takes on Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” and Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law” are loose, live cuts that befit the celebratory mood of a live album.