You've got to give it to Bryan Adams. It's been 27 years since Cuts Like a Knife, his breakthrough album, was released. Yet, the Canadian rocker has managed to stay relevant, delivering hit after hit, jetting off on sell-out tours in every imaginable corner of the globe — from Kathmandu to Dhaka and Karachi to Tbilisi.
But some places, like Dubai, get a bit more love.
"I think we were the first Western act to play there, way back in 1993," says Adams, 51. "I remember a hotel lift, large amounts of Lebanese food and wondering where all the water came from."
Audio: Bryan Adams speaks to Radio 2
Adams and his band are back on Friday for a one-night-only performance at the Dubai World Trade Centre Arena.
"I can't quite remember the number of times we've been but Dubai's grown up a lot since I was last there and I look forward to coming back," he says, referring to his last gig here in 2006.
"Fans can expect what they've known from us in the past with a few new songs and all the hits. But we've got new shoes… We've got new shiny shoes."
The UAE performance is part of a Middle East tour that will kick off in Syria followed by Lebanon, then the Emirates, Qatar and Oman.
‘Exciting'
"It's been really good for us every time we come there," says the singer, speaking over the phone from his home in London. "I think we were one of the first big shows to ever play in Turkey many years ago. Recently, we played in Egypt and Lebanon was 10 years ago. It's exciting to come back because we always have great responses."
Adams has been performing, and touring, ever since his 1980 self-titled debut. Currently, performing across the US and Europe promoting his new album Bare Bones, he says he is not slowing down. After the Middle East tour, he heads for a five-city tour of the sub-continent early next year, including performances in Dhaka and Kathmandu before heading back to the US.
"I don't feel the need to. I don't feel like I'm working at all. When you do the job you love you never work a day in your life," he says.
Bare Bones, released last month, features an acoustic mix of all his biggest hits and some new tracks.
"Bare Bones is only me though," he clarifies. "The Middle East and India tour will be a band show."
It is also a deliberate choice to play at unusual places, he says. "It is exciting to play in uncharted territories. My feeling is people are people everywhere. Everyone wants similar things. If you were to take a song out of Pakistan or Dubai or Syria and Turkey and Massachusetts, the audience is the same."
So when does he become Bryan Adams the singer and Bryan Adams the lead singer of a band?
"I don't really think about that," he says. "Basically all my songs are written on acoustic guitars. That's where they all start and then the band takes it to another level. Many of my songs are written with the idea that they will be performed as big performances.
"Some songs don't need big orchestrations and that is what Bare Bones is about. It's a deconstruction and allowing something to have more space. But then again, I've always been a rocker and it's hard to not tour as a band. I'm so used to it."
Famously vegetarian and an acclaimed photographer, Adams, throughout his career, has performed for various fund-raising concerts. His Bryan Adams Foundation, mainly funded by his photographic exhibitions, provides education and learning opportunities for children around the world who can't normally afford them.
"It's a really enjoyable thing to have started. It's in its infancy but it's nice to have somewhere to direct my focus as opposed to years past where I would pick up things here and there. It's always nice to put something back to my foundation," he says.
As the best-selling Canadian male artist of all time, he must have surely heard of his much younger compatriot making waves in the music world — the 16-year-old Justin Bieber?
"Nowadays for anyone to break into the music world, I tip my hat off to them. I don't really know much of his music to be honest, but I know he is Canadian, he is a musician. So all I can say is ‘Keep going, kid'."
Private life
Despite the years he's spent in the limelight, Adams is fiercely private. Rumours that he is dating Australian model Elle Macpherson have however been floating around for a while.
"I believe that your private life should be just that, private," he says. "Some people use their private lives as part of their publicity and there are people who become famous by only the fact that they have been revealing about their private lives. But I am about the music. That's what I am."
And that he is. From 1983's Straight From The Heart to Summer of '69 and the hugely successful ballads (Everything I Do) I Do It for You and Please Forgive Me to Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?, it looks like it's going to be "18 till I die" for one of Canada's most influential recording artists.
"I am currently in the UK. I've just arrived from America and am just sort of sitting here for a couple of days before I head down to Syria. I'm going back to the States in January, India in February and then back to the US in March and summer will just be band shows," he says.
"It's fun. For me home is where I lay my hat."
