Bryan Adams (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian singer, musician, producer, actor, social activist, and photographer. Adams has been one of the most successful figures of the world of rock music during last three decades. He’s known for his strong husky vocals and energetic live performances. In 1991, he released his popular Waking Up the Neighbors album which included “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”, one of the best-selling singles of all time. (More from Wikipedia)
The concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall took place at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously. The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987).
Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was “if the Berlin Wall came down” – and four months later, it did. Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide. Scorpions opened the concert with “In the Flesh” and also performed on three other songs. Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during “the Trial” sequence toward the end. As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared: “Tear down the Wall!”, and the wall was pushed over, row by row.
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Other Canadian rockers include Bryan Adams, k.d. lang, Rush, Loverboy, Klaatu, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and so many more. Anna McGarrigle wrote the title song “Heart Like a Wheel” on Linda Ronstadt’s 1974 breakthrough album, Heart Like a Wheel that was later used as the name of a 1983 film also called Heart Like a Wheel about drag racer Shirley Muldowney; while Kate McGarrigle was married to Chapel Hill-born singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III whose union resulted in the birth of two more musicians, Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright. I have a CD somewhere that features the whole family if I remember right.
(April 2013)
Together with Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams), Jesse Malin co-founded a hardcore punk rock band in 2002 called The Finger.
(June 2013/2)
Opposition to the unfair imprisonment of two women in Pussy Riot became a cause célèbre of many Western celebrities plus musicians from every genre imaginable: Bryan Adams, Beastie Boys, the Black Keys, John Cale, Peter Gabriel, Green Day, Nina Hagen, Kathleen Hanna, Paul McCartney, Moby, Yoko Ono, Pet Shop Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Patti Smith, Sting, Pete Townshend, etc. Pussy Riot was featured on 60 Minutes as well.
For their part, the bandmembers in Pussy Riot that were not in prison distanced themselves from all of this attention and were quoted as saying: “We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Björk have offered to perform with us. But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.”
(December 2013)
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