By Richard Burnett for Curtains Up
@bugsburnett
Montreal homeboy Corey Hart bid adieu to 12,000 of the faithful in a heartfelt four-hour concert at the Bell Centre on June 3, a much-anticipated show that Hart billed in interviews as his last-ever.
It was a fine way to cap a stellar 30-year music career that saw Hart sell over 16 million records worldwide and score nine US Billboard Top 40 hits, notably his MTV-generation signature song Sunglasses at Night.
This was a two-set, 38-song show (with a 30-minute intermission), so it took a while to get to the two big hits, Sunglasses at Night and Never Surrender.
But the trip there was worth it, if not a little bumpy and self-indulgent, with covers of some of Hart’s favourite songs, like Rod Stewart’s Maggie May. Some worked – like Billy Joel’s Piano Man, because Hart genuinely connected with his audience, explaining how he used to play the song when he worked for $35 a night at a Long Island bar when he was 19 – and others didn’t, like a half-baked version of Bruce Springsteen’s Hungry Heart.
The show also underscored the duality of Hart’s career: His MTV teen-idol phase, and his later success in Quebec and Canada. That duality was crystallized when during the first half of the concert Hart and his wife, pop singer Julie Masse, sang a series of songs that came across like a smooth Sonny and Cher routine, Quebecois-style. Needless to say, the hometown audience lapped it up.
Still, the biggest applause was reserved for Hart’s English-language hits, which – backed by a tight seven-piece band and two back-up singers, Julie Masse and powerhouse diva Kim Richardson – Hart delivered with genuine enthusiasm and emotion.
Hart, an ageless 52 and retired in the Bahamas with his family, teared up onstage a couple times, as the 12,000 faithful stood loudly cheering on their feet and raised the roof. It was a pretty nice way to hang up his sunglasses for good.
First Set
Can’t Help Falling in Love
Boy in the Box
Lone Wolf
Lamp at Midnight
She’s Got the Radio
Waiting For You
Komrade Kiev
Black Cloud Rain
Tell Me
Eurasian Eyes
Hymne à l’Amour
Third of June
Là-Bas
Dix Mille Chevaux
Love and Money
So Visible
Maggie May
Second Set
Bang! (Starting Over)
A Little Love
It Ain’t Enough
Piano Man
Honesty
I Am By Your Side
Jenny Fey
Balade Nien Cheng
That’s Alright Mama
Daddy’s Girl
In Your Soul
Everything in My Heart
Desperado
You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
Encores
Spot You In A Coalmine
Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)
Hungry Heart
Sunglasses at Night
Never Surrender
My Way
Chase the Sun
