Bon Jovi at The O2 Arena
Bon Jovi – O2 Arena – 13 June 2010
Words by Heather Fitsell
I am afraid this review may be a bit biased as I really like both bands I am reviewing, but better a nice review than a slating one! Promoters AEG Live had run a competition for bands to win the opportunity to support Bon Jovi at one of five dates at the start of the tour and I had emailed this to my friends British rockers New Device who promptly entered, honestly who wouldn’t?!….Well maybe some hardcore industrial metal band! Just fifteen minutes before they went on stage in Sheffield during their tour with Dear Superstar, New Device got a telephone call to say that they had been selected to be main support for Bon Jovi on Sunday 13th June, just 10 days away! The following ten days were filled with excessive excitement, panic, organisation, press, CD production and countless Facebook and Myspace postings promoting the event to their fans, before the day finally arrived! I arrived and met up with New Device family, friends and girlfriends and went to collect our tickets from the booth excitedly marked “New Device Guest List” at which point the giddy excitement started to take over. I had just come off tour with the New Device guys, where I had been working as merch/photo/video/roadie/driver bitch and the prospect of going from seeing them in a small venue like the 500 capacity Moho in Manchester to the 23,000 capacity O2 Arena was just hard to get my head around, but once they entered that stage they just looked at home, they were not lost and made the most of the increased stage space and truly amazing opportunity. They opened their set with the rockin’ ‘Make My Day’ which soon got the attention of the 11,500 odd people that were already in there. This was followed by ‘Never Say Never’ and ‘On Fire’, which are great, punchy live tracks. Three of the band members had been plagued with post-tour flu in the day’s preceeding the concert, but in these opening numbers you would not have known!
They then took the opportunity to introduce themselves and say hello to the audience, hell it’s not every night you get to say “Hello O2”, so lead singer Dan Leigh said it three times, before slowing things down a bit and playing their latest single ‘In the Fading Light’, “for all those who have ever had a broken heart”, as guitarist Shane Lee came to the front of the stage for a little solo part. These guys do not mess around though and launched straight back into the powerful rock numbers that proved they had every right to be on that stage on Sunday night, by now the venue was over three-quarters full clearly people had been tempted in by what they heard whilst buying their overpriced merchandise (£20 for a programme), food and drinks in the corridors.
As New Device exploded into their first single ‘Takin’ Over’ to wrap up their performance, my voice had started to go from screaming, singing and shouting too much (apparently the guys could hear us screaming!), but by the end of Dan singing “We are the New Device, we’re takin’ over” the audience was all applauding and some even gave them a standing ovation. Damn I was proud!
Next up was the almighty Bon Jovi. With over 25 years of experience these guys should know how to put on a show and they do. As they enter the stage with not a hair out of place and Jon’s pearly whites gleaming, the women in the audience are overcome with hormones and the men are simply ready to rock out for a few hours and they do. I have not played the two most recent albums very much and so am not as familiar with the tracks. It is also clear from the audience’s reaction that Bon Jovi’s best tracks came off albums released in the late 80’s and early 90’s and it was during the third track of the night ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ that they really got everyone going and with the house lights up you could see everyone jumping up and down and loving every minute of it. This was followed by songs including ‘Lost Highway’ and ‘Superman’ during which images of local heroes are displayed on the video screens. Around this time, my friend makes me laugh by saying “Jon Bon Jovi dances like a dad”, but as father of four children at the age of 48, I think that is allowed! As they launch into ‘We Got It Goin’ On’ the video screens at the back of the stage twist, turn and elevate to create a platform for Jon to walk and dance along as the crowd sing out the words. I have noticed the significant development of video screen technology at large arena shows over the last year, but this took it to a whole new level, I was seriously impressed.
By now the crowd was really pumping and if they were not excited enough already, next came ‘Bad Medicine’ which was definitely the highlight of the night up to that point. They twisted from ‘Bad Medicine’ into ‘Pretty Woman’ and back into ‘Bad Medicine’ like the practised musicians that they are, it was a very smooth transition.
Next came Richie Sambora’s chance to shine as he got 23,000 people clapping before he started to play ‘Lay Your Hands On Me’. He truly shined in this moment and as he let rip on his guitar solo, many an air guitar was also produced! I have to say his deeper voice was stronger and sounded better than that of Jon. The next few tracks were played from the horse shoe shaped stage that came out from the main stage and included ‘(You Want To) Make A Memory’ and ‘Bed Of Roses’ as Jon sat on the edge and sang to certain audience members and touched their hands, making it that little bit more personal just for them. This flowed into some acoustic tracks with the rest of the band including ‘I’m Alive’.
For me the highlight of the night was ‘It’s My Life’ taken from the ‘Crush’ album released in 2000. For me this is the last, really good Bon Jovi track that they have released that is on a par with their earlier material. The thumping drums from Tico Torres and Richie Sambora’s “Woah woah” have me dancing around like I have ants in my pants, punching my fist in the air and throwing in some devils rock horns for good measure! The classic ‘Keep the Faith’ closes off the main set, before they return for a three-track encore of ‘In These Arms’, ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ and ‘Living on a Prayer’. Whilst I am starting to worry that their big hits are drying up and that Bon Jovi are milking their back catalogue and devoted fan base, with excessively priced tickets and merchandies, I am very glad I got to see the show, it was fantastic. Bon Jovi will always put on a good show guaranteed!
