Why India Can’t Get Enough of Bryan Adams and his 90s Peers

With the announcement of Bryan Adams' latest international tour, ‘So Happy That It Hurts’, making another five-city visit across India, a question arises: why do Indians love Bryan Adams so much?

Despite a range of new and diverse artists, from Bonobo to Flying Lotus to, more recently, The Strokes, making their debut on Indian stages, there seems to be a large faction of artists that keep returning to play on the Indian circuit more so than others—namely, throughout the years, UB40, Poets of the Fall, Michael Learns to Rock, and The Vengaboys.

Most of these artists saw their heyday come and go somewhere in the late 90s to early 2000s, yet they have found a haven here with Indian audiences, allowing them to keep coming back.

According to a detailed piece penned by QZ in 2018, when Adams was coming back again for his fifth tour of the country, these are the factors that have kept this cycle afloat:

A combination of business meets nostalgia: availability and affordability.

Back in the early days, the scene was still barren, to say the least, when it came to international acts coming into India.

A lot of this, to date, has to do with logistical and legal nightmares, married with a lack of sufficient and suitable venues across the country. Adding to this the fact that artists usually perform in India based solely on their availability and inclination (not to mention how affordable they are for event companies), not a lot of currently popular acts could make their debut in India. Most international bands were also not focusing on coming to Asia at the time, so those who did were adorned with large crowds and fan worship.

This left room for event companies like KCT Entertainment (responsible for the Indian show of UB40 and Boney M.) to look at who catered to 18-24-year-olds back in the 90s and early 2000s, thus ultimately targeting 30+ TGs with lots of disposable income in the coming years. More importantly, these bands were critically heard by this TG when they were just leaving high school or while they were in college.

Over time, these artists could keep being brought back to India as the TG became older, had more disposable income, and created even more genuine bonds with each other, leading to these bands being called in organically, way past their heyday.

This cycle can be seen down to a science with some of the most well-celebrated artists coming into India.

For example, initially Bryan Adams was brought into India because his music was popular with the then '93-'94 18-24 TG crowd of college students (and there was little to no availability of other international acts to fill that void). This led to the same event companies calling Adams over as they started targeting this TG as it grew older and developed more disposable income. Over time, these artists would keep growing in their popularity due to the vacuum created by the lack of artists available for Indian audiences on that particular level and begin to form stronger bonds with pre-existing audiences. This soon changed to these artists being called back because, while they work with the now 30+ TG, they also give more opportunities for companies catering to this TG to sponsor and advertise through these events.

This can also be seen in the late 2000s with the Finnish band Poets of the Fall, who were brought in for their first Indian show in 2007, a year after the release of their hit song ‘Carnival of Rust’, which received frequent airplay on Radio One and other channels catering to college kids in major metropolitan cities in India. The popularity of this band was in place due to 18-24-year-old college students listening to POTF, them being available and affordable enough for event companies such as E365 Entertainment to bring them to India. Consequently, they were then able to bring them back in 2012 despite the rampant rise of other bands like Porcupine Tree, Tool, and Gojira, having a way larger demand by the same TG for shows in India.

Now, the same can be seen with bands like Cigarettes After Sex, who are set to come back to India for the Indian leg of their X’s tour in January 2025. Now, looking through the same scope we saw Bryan Adams and POTF in: mainstream bands listened to by Indian college students in major metropolitan cities (making us one of their top streaming markets), check. Unavailability of bigger acts like Coldplay and Imagine Dragons to keep coming into India, check. So events companies will keep pushing the band to come to India to feed this demand while CAS will keep getting more opportunities to create a bigger, more genuine bond with these audiences, later giving room to them being called for years to come.

What other factors do you think create an environment for the same artists to keep coming back to perform in India?