A review by julez

ONE WORD: WOW!!!!

It was amazing. The moment the gates opened, the sun came through (after a day of miserable weather), if that's not meant to be I don't know what is! The stage looked a bit boring to me, but hey, who cares about the stage right?! The show started with a new Dutch support act: Bluebus... they were pretty good, but too bad we couldn't sing anything along. After that, Nickelback ofcourse... It didn't really do the job for me. The singer asked if we were 'having a fucking good time' at least 6 times. I thought it was rather boring. At like 8.20pm all of a sudden the guys walked on stage... It was kind of a surprise, since we were not really expecting them just yet, and there had not yet been a tension-build up. Anyway... the opening was awesome. Jon performed Last Man Standing on the walking-bridge, which I thought was great, since I had only managed to get tickets for the 2nd field, so this way I did get see him from a bit closer. The show was energetic, amusing, and just great music. Highlights were Who Says you Can't Go Home, Bed of Roses (I can't recall hearing that in any of the other shows I went to), I'll Be There For You (we kept going on until the guys had had enough of it and started the next song!), and The Radio Saved My Life Tonight. During Bells of Freedom, the pictures of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King first made me think like 'Oh no, here we go,' (usually Europeans aren't all up with the sentimental thing, as Americans are), but later on, I actually did appreciate it, knowing where it is coming from. And as an American Studies major, I know all about the freedom issue, which is receiving a lot of attention nowadays. I appreciate Bon Jovi trying to put the word out and not just letting everything pass them by...

The one thing I kind of missed were the fireworks! I was bummed out about that, because I was waiting for it the entire last hour... but nothing came. I wonder whether it was city-regulations or something like that. Since I had already read that in Germany there were fireworks.
Anyway, I've seen 3 other shows before this (1 These Days, 1 Crush, 1 Bounce), and I have to say, Landgraaf in 1996 is still the best one (probably because it was my first and it just had an amazing ambiance), but last night's show is definitely a first runner up! I can't wait until they come back to Holland in another 3 years or something, let's hope it won't be much longer than that...

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