SamboraBlog

Review: Bon Jovi swings for the fences

Monday, July 14, 2008
Last updated: Tuesday July 15, 2008, EDT 1:40 PM
BY MIKE KERWICK
Staff Writer

NEW YORK — This is the danger of playing doorman at a new arena in your home state, the perils of delivering a five-star show on Opening Night there.

This is the misfortune of letting Pearl Jam and R.E.M. beat you to the Madison Square Garden stage by a few weeks.

This is the inevitable result when you reach the 98th show of the tour, if the lead singer’s numbers are correct.

In order:

You set the bar really, REALLY high.
You run the risk of challenging the echoes other big-name bands left behind.
Your set list becomes predictable.
So when Jon Bon Jovi climbed onto the stage at 8:42 p.m. Monday night, he was already attempting the impossible. In a vacuum, the band’s Monday night show at Madison Square Garden was entertaining. Jon’s voice was great; Richie Sambora’s guitar sounded almost as good here as it did in Newark.

But this show was not as good as Night 1 in Newark. And when people talk about Bon Jovi in the past tense, are they going to remember the first night of a two-date set at the Garden? Or are they going to talk about the time he played to 50,000-plus at Central Park?

There were nice moments Monday. He channeled the Ramones on stage, rushing through six songs before he came up for air. The group opened the show with “Lost Highway,” before settling back into two Bon Jovi classics – “Born to Be My Baby” and “You Give Love a Bad Name.” Jon tapped his heart with his left hand and extended it to the crowd during “Baby.” The crowd responded by exploding when the song concluded.

He hit “Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars,” “Runaway,” and an “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”-“Twist and Shout” combination before the lights finally went dark.

It had been 33 minutes. Ninety-eight shows be damned, this band still had some energy.

But the band won’t score a ton of points for originality. The guys did tweak the set list as they approached the encore, inserting “(You Want to) Make a Memory” and “Bed of Roses,” two hits that didn’t make the cut for the band’s Central Park show.

But of the first 14 songs Bon Jovi played in the Park, he played at least 12 of them again at the Garden.

“Let’s blow the roof off this joint,” Jon said after 11 songs, launching into “It’s My Life.”

He already blew the roof off one joint last autumn. How many times can you expect to do that?

The All-American Rejects opened Monday’s show with an eight-song, 42-minute set that included “Swing, Swing,” “Dirty Little Secret,” “It Ends Tonight” and “Move Along.”

Bon Jovi wraps up its two-show set at the Garden tonight.

SETLIST
LOST HIGHWAY / BORN TO BE MY BABY / BAD NAME / CAPT. CRASH / RUNAWAY / SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD w/ Twist & Shout / BLAZE OF GLORY / WHOLE LOT OF LEAVIN' / ALWAYS / ANY OTHER DAY / WE GOT IT GOIN' ON / IT'S MY LIFE / FAITH / I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU - RICHIE VOX / (YOU WANT TO) MAKE A MEMORY / BED OF ROSES / DRY COUNTY / HAVE A NICE DAY / WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T GO HOME / BAD MEDICINE w/ Shout

ENCORE: HALLELUJAH / WANTED / (LIVIN' ON A) PRAYER