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"Some pretty boy rockers never outgrow their denim"
It's so tough to peg, in the lukewarm of the moment, which of rock's generic Johnny Come Latelys will survive long enough to attain the half-hearted respect and annual touring receipts that come with simple survival.
Duran Duran or ABC? Lenny Kravitz or Terence Trent D'Arby? Mariah Carey or Taylor Dayne? Bon Jovi or Firehouse? Or Damn Yankees? Or Mr. Big?
Bon Jovi, though, eh? Bon Jovi.
Wow. Who'd have thought that "You Give Love A Bad Name," "Livin' On A Prayer" and "Wanted Dead Or Alive" — the schlocky pop-metal melodramas that made this (and here I defer to the late, great Graffiti magazine) "hairy dork band" global megastars with 1986's Slippery When Wet — were rock 'n' roll shots heard 'round the world, keys to the arena that would still work well into the year Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke once mythologized as the next great 'milestone of human progress?
Who could have foreseen that this eager-to-please mishmash of Springsteen (without the poet's subtle eye for meaning in understatement), Van Halen (without the fool's capacity for self-mockery) and Journey (with, unfortunately, all the worst tendencies intact) would be able to reclaim its attendance record at the Molson Amphitheatre from those troubled Backstreet Boys last night? While, apparently, a Toronto couple found sufficient meaning in Jon Bon Jovi's balladry to get married during the performance, no less.
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