Sixteen Again, Bon Jovi Makes A Teenagers Of Us All

the hush before the screams

When I go to a Bon Jovi concert the minute Jon gets on stage I am swept away. I become the screaming teenager I was when he first came on the scene, and sing along to his hits yelling “I love you Jon!!” between songs.  That magic happened Thursday night at MetLife Stadium.

Jon kept the energy up playing  the hits, “You Give Love A Bad Name”,”Born To Be My Baby”,” I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”,  Someday I’ll be Saturday Night even his break out hit Runaway to name a few.  But, when he played almost anything off Slippery when wet and New Jersey there was a lull that provoked Jon to keep asking ” Are you still with me”. Which really just made me wonder “am I?”.  His newer songs aren’t bad, but they aren’t very good don’t have a lot of energy and don’t inspire jumping to your feet to dance.

Without Richie Sambora, this was a Bongiovi show. All Jon.   He pulled it off but I was disappointed with how little he moved, he jumps in place more than dances and doesn’t interact with the audience barely talking to us at all.  Also and this I find baffling, he ignores keyboardist David Bryan and Drummer Tico Torres. He didn’t introduce them, didn’t speak to them and when I left during encores he still hadn’t said a word about them.  Made me wonder if there is some truth to Richie Sambora saying its Jon’s attitude that  is keeping him off the tour. No, it probably is the booze.

I love seeing bands play in their home state and Jon is a Jersey boy, he declared ” where ever I am in the world I can hear  Jersey girls scream” the set which was a cheesy old chevy car front showed different images of the Jersey shore with “we are open” signs on small businesses reminding us that Jersey is open for business after super storm Sandy.

The best part of the night was during the song “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” he broke into a Stones and Roy Orbinson cover. It was fun and unexpected and was one of the few times Jon really seemed to be having fun. It also  made me think “he really is great when he’s not using his own material” ouch.

I’ll be there at the next tour hopefully Richie Sambora will be back and although Jon is not the best performer and Bon Jovi aren’t the best music makers   I’ll be sixteen again, yelling for the band.