By Kevin Rademeyer.
In October last year, beneath the high vaults of Madison Square Garden, New York City, Bryan Adams staged a concert that transformed the sold out crowd to living archive of modern rock. Fullview was in attendance that night, and what unfolded offered a revealing glimpse into what South African audiences can now expect as the “Roll With The Punches” tour makes its long-awaited arrival next week.
Adams did not begin at the centre of the spectacle. Instead, he emerged from the margins, appearing on a smaller stage at the rear of the arena, armed with an acoustic guitar and a voice that has lost none of its tensile strength. From the first chords, the crowd was already singing, not as passive listeners but as participants in a shared memory. It was a deliberate inversion of scale. In a venue built for grandeur, Adams chose intimacy.
That tension between the personal and the panoramic defined the evening. As he moved toward the main stage, the performance expanded in scope without losing its emotional core. LED wristbands flickered across the arena, transforming thousands of spectators into a shifting constellation of light. Yet even at its most theatrical, the show resisted excess. There were no overwrought effects, only a wry visual motif in the form of a drifting boxing glove, a nod to the tour’s title and its central theme of endurance.
The set itself moved with a kind of narrative intelligence. Songs from different decades were not simply performed but woven together, each one reinforcing Adams’ peculiar gift for making nostalgia feel immediate. Classics such as “Run to You”, “Heaven”, and “Summer of 69” landed with undiminished force, while newer material from Roll With The Punches slipped seamlessly into the repertoire. The title track in particular carried a renewed urgency, its defiance sharpened by time rather than dulled by it.
What stood out most, however, was not the scale of the production but the clarity of Adams’ intent. At sixty-five, his voice remains strikingly intact, its grain still capable of conveying both abrasion and tenderness. He shifts between electric guitar, bass, and acoustic with an ease that underscores a deeper truth. This is not an artist revisiting past glories. It is an artist still inhabiting them, still testing their limits.
For South African audiences, this matters. The upcoming dates at the Grand Arena at GrandWest in Cape Town on 21, 22 and 23 April, the SunBet Arena at Time Square in Pretoria on 25 and 26 April, and the Durban ICC on 28 and 29 April are not merely stops on a global itinerary. They represent the arrival of a show that has already proven its power on one of the world’s most exacting stages.
Expect a concert that begins in quiet connection and builds toward collective release. Expect a setlist that refuses to segregate past and present. Expect moments of spontaneity, from audience requests to unscripted interactions that dissolve the barrier between performer and crowd. Above all, expect a performance that understands its audience not as spectators, but as collaborators in the act of remembering.
If the night at Madison Square Garden offered any certainty, it is this: the wait has not diminished the experience. It has deepened it. South Africa is not simply receiving a tour. It is inheriting a moment that has already been tested, refined, and ignited before one of the most demanding audiences in the world.
And when Adams steps onto those local stages, the effect is likely to be the same. The lights will rise. The first chord will ring out. And for a few hours, time will fold in on itself, carried by a voice that still refuses to yield.