A review by Jon4Eva / jon4eva@jovimail.com

I woke up one Father’s day….. and screamed! Today was the day! My day had finally come! 17th June 2001 was the night of my first ever Bon Jovi gig!!! I was so excited! I have never got ready so quickly in my life!!! I gave my Dad his present but reminded him that the real treat was that I was taking him to the concert (although technically he was taking me). But then I had to sit there and wait, because as we had reserved seats there was no point leaving the house until midday….

So we finally left, I was so agitated, every 5 minutes I asked my Dad whether he had the tickets and I kept fidgeting around (and turning up the CD player). We got to Cardiff at half past 2 as planned and suddenly we were surrounded by people wearing Bon Jovi T-shirts. I was surrounded by my own people! Then I realised that I was like the only one not wearing a BJ T-shirt, the closest I had was a New Jersey (the state) T-shirt and that just wasn’t good enough, luckily I had lots of money to get some merchandise. But I could see that that was the least of our problems at the moment, there were no signs to lead us to the stadium and we couldn’t seem to find a car park either. Suddenly I spotted the stadium and a car park next to it. We went down a little lane to get to the car park but found that it was closed on Sundays, so we had to reverse up a narrow, steep lane onto a main road. We managed that but now we had to find a car park!

We were roaming around Cardiff but all the car parks were full. I was so scared and ironically the song Fear kept going around my head. In the end we found a spot, but it was already 3.30. we rushed to the gates but when we saw the queue we really didn’t feel like standing there for another half hour so we went to get some T-shirts. I bought some T-shirts, posters and the program. By the time I had done that and got changed the gates were already open, despite having a bag full of food and 2 disposable cameras we managed to get in no probs. When we went to our seats I looked down and felt dizzy! We were so high! (On the 3rd level)

So I sat there impatiently, and not very impressed by the support bands, when suddenly some1 started a Mexican wave around the stadium! We did it about 6 times around and it set a fantastic atmosphere! Then finally the Empire State Building began unfolding before us. Then the lights went down and the OWN intro began. Then Bon Jovi burst onto the stage and for a second (but seemed like longer) I was frozen! Just paralysed! The moment was here! They were right here in front of me! (Well to the left and below me actually!) I couldn’t believe it! I almost forgot to scream! But to my dismay no one around me was standing up! In fact the woman behind me was telling me to sit down. Who cares I thought, this is supposed to be the best night of my life! So I got up and jumped and screamed and sang every word to every song. (And attempted to take photos but they are really not worth talking about.)

It was the most perfect set list. It was so amazing when they played These Days and then Jesse came on stage. It was literally the best night of my life, I have never been so happy in my life. I know some people cried at Never Say Goodbye, but I was too happy to cry. I really was hoping it would never end!

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