SamboraBlog

Bon Jovi suffers from no point, and no good tunes

By Gabe Caggiano

Special to The Sentinel

Reviewing the Bon Jovi concert at the MCI Center last Saturday night was a lot harder than I imagined. I'm really not sure what the heck I saw.

I will tell you the musical highlight of the night was the four AC/DC songs that roared one after another over the house PA before the concert began. I can also tell you guitarist Richie Sambora is a dead ringer for Motley Crue's Tommy Lee, only Richie looks healthier. That may explain why his current wife, Heather Locklear, left Tommy and married Richie years ago. I also noticed Jon Bon Jovi looks more and more like Heather Locklear with his blonde shag haircut. When Jon and Richie sang into the same microphone for the duet "I'll be there for you" it really was more creepy than endearing. Let's put it this way: Mick and Keith don't sing "Wild Horses" into the same mic and Steve and Joe don't sing "Sweet Emotion" that way, either. But as the title of that old Knack album proclaimed, "The little girls understand."

And that really is the heart of a Bon Jovi concert. Yes, there were men there, but Bon Jovi is very much a "chick thing." The ladies come to ogle the pretty boys on stage and don't discuss the set list choices after the show. This tour is a sellout in arenas all across the country as well, so clearly everybody is still feeling the love. But it's a real sappy kind of love. The title of Bon Jovi's new CD makes me roll my eyes. It's called "Have a Nice Day."

Have a nice day? Sounds like something a phone solicitor thought up. It's not any better than another Bon Jovi CD called "Crush." The big hit off that one was a song called "It's My Life." Well, who ever said it wasn't and what's your point , Jon?

The heart of the problem is that there is no point to any of Bon Jovi's newer material because Jon Bon Jovi is one extremely wealthy, happy, well-adjusted and grateful rock star. And happy people make lousy art. I would check with Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Chris Whitley to confirm this, but they are dead. But boy, they sure wrote better songs than Bon Jovi before drugs took them down. Perhaps their jealousy of Jon's ultra-fab hair drove them over the edge. Then again, I doubt it.

And even the title of some songs played at the MCI show are proof positive Jon Bon Jovi has nothing to say: "It's my life," "Story of my life," "Welcome to wherever you are" and "Who says you can't go home?" What is this, "Dr. Phil" with guitars?

The material is so thin Bon Jovi covers Tom Petty's "I won't back down" in the middle of the show. Last time I checked, Tom Petty has never played a Bon Jovi song in concert. If Tom ever gets an urge to be pelted with foreign objects from the crowd, I'm sure some day he will.

The musical high point was "Blaze of Glory" from the "Young Guns" movie soundtrack. Drummer Tico Torres began the song with a hypnotic American Indian beat with gorgeous western desert images behind him on the huge HD screen above the band. In short, the band cooked on this song.

And Jon Bon Jovi still comes off as a nice guy any parent would love to have as a son-in-law. That's his stock in trade. And he's made millions off that image so there is no reason to change the formula.

But if Bon Jovi isn't careful, he'll end up the Wayne Newton of the new millennium. Consistent, dependable and harmless. That may be enough for some, but I'm looking forward to a real rock 'n' roll show coming to Baltimore in February. The Rolling Stones will be in town and Mick doesn't give a darn if you have a nice day. And the Stones won't be covering any Bon Jovi songs, either. Count on it.