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24 June 2003 - Wolverhampton, UK Concert Review 25 June 2003
We'll Bring The House Down

A review by Simon Moxon / smoxon@yahoo.com

Last time I saw Bon Jovi was at Milton Keynes on the One Wild Night Tour. That must have been the worst organised gig I’ve ever attended. Crap Traffic control by the Police (Or total lack of it), resulting in frustrating queues, crap expensive parking in a hilly field (If it had rained it would have been a disaster), crap stewards from Glasgow who did not know the area, who were aggressive and nearly caused a riot at the end by blocking off one of the exits and not letting me or about 10,000 others behind me out. Band played well but the rest was BAD! (See my review of the gig written at the time) In contrast Wolverhampton was superb. No problems at all getting there by road, parked outside the city centre and got the tram into the centre leaving us a 5 minute walk to the stadium. On our arrival we found the Police and the stewards to be very polite and knowledgeable. All very well organised and nobody appeared to be frustrated as they were at Milton bloody Keynes. Saw the guys arrive in their fleet of Mercedes with Police escort which got things off to a good start. Minimal queuing to get into the stadium with friendly stewards, presumably from the Football Club, politely assisting everyone to their seats. The support band came on and I still don't know what they were called! Could have been 'Live' or 'Alive' and despite working hard and jumping around a lot I can't remember any of their tunes. I must say though that they sounded louder than Bon Jovi. Then after a short break the main guys arrived on stage..And what a stage! Miles better lighting and effects than Milton Keynes. Started the show with 'Bounce' which sounded good, followed up with ‘Bad Name’ which I have to say is getting a bit tedious these days as they always play it. We need more variation guys. Then ‘Runaway’ my least favourite song and well overdue retirement. (Just my own Opinion folks) By the end of this third song I thought Jon looked ready to collapse, he was obviously really tired and who can blame him. But being the star he is he kept going and livened up especially at the end. ‘Everyday’ sounded brilliant and I thought went down best of all of the tracks from ‘Bounce’ that they played. I was disappointed at ‘Undivided’ and ‘The Distance’ which all sounded a bit mushy to me. As much as I hero worship Richie, being a guitarist myself, I would have preferred him to sing one of his own excellent songs and left ‘I’ll Be There For You’ to Jon. It is one of my favourite tracks and was not quite as atmospheric with Richie doing the honours. I won’t comment on every track but ‘Raise Your Hands’ is a real monster stadium song and I loved it. Jon was crouched down staring at Richies left hand finger movements on the guitar in mock amazement at his prowess. Their first encore ‘I Got The Girl’ was met with almost silence and was in my opinion not the best choice for an encore. The rest was brilliant and the crowd gave a fantastic cheer as Jon introduced each member of the band including Hugh. Come on guys let him become a proper member of the band he has most certainly earned it. Of course the biggest cheer was for Richie who certainly did look a little fatter in the face. (Possibly caused by steroids to reduce inflammation of the vocal chords). Anyone know where I can get a copy of the video shown during Bad Medicine?
All in all a great gig and many thanks to the organisers, stewards and Police who were great and of course Bon Jovi. Wolverhampton is a great place for a gig.

If anyone was wondering about the title of my review it’s the title of a hit record by the greatest group to ever hail from Wolverhampton, SLADE. Would have been great if Jovi had learnt one of their songs instead of that dreadful ‘Rockin All Over The World’. But hey, you can’t have everything I suppose.

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