A review by Mel C / Demartini13@aol.com

I have been waiting to see these guys live since I became a fan on the day "Blaze of Glory" was released in Europe.I lived in the war-swept Bosnia where, of course, there was no concerts going on so I had no hopes on seeing Bon Jovi any time soon but when a british soldier gave me a bootleg cassette of the 1995 Wembley show and I knew I had to do something to see these guys live one day, so I moved to CO.
I was a little disappointed that they didn't come here on the Crush Tour but I new that they would show up eventually.
Well the night of April 30th was that night I've been waiting for.

The opening act was SR-71 and they were not bad. They did a great job warming up the crowd for Bon Jovi, especially when they played a bit of Ozzy's "Crazy Train" and AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long". Their set was quickly over and the crowd went wild eager for the Jersey gods to come out.

A little video was played right before the band hit the stage: clips from VH-1's Behind the Music and the speech the band gave after recieving an award for the best video on last year's Vh-1 my music awards. Then you could see the band leaving a room backstage into an elevator that led to the stage. The door on the stage opened and they came out.
They did a great version of One Wild Night for the opening, alldough I think the should have "banged their heads" to it to prove people that they DO have some of their early-years metal flavor left in them. Well i still know that.....

The rest of the show was absolutely fantastic. The whole time Jon was talking to the audience in the way that made you feel like he was talking directly to you. His voice sounded great all night. Being a huge fan with probably more than 100 of their CD's and concert recordings, I can realy say that the whole band sounded awesome. They improvised on most of the tracks especially on "I'll Be There For You" where Richie did a extra long solo at the end. Jon was talking about the name of the venue a little bit - he said that Pepsi Center is a pretty lame name compared to the other Denver venue's names like the old McNichols and Red Rocks and all that. He baptized the Pepsi Center into Johnny's church of Rock'n Roll and he added that his sweat was the holy water. The continued this show like any other show, with all their hits, eye contacts with every one of the 20,000 fans and all the cool outfits and sweet-a@# guitars.

I saw L.A.Guns and Ratt here two years ago and I gotta say that Bon Jovi sounded way more trained and prepared than those guys. They are all about the same age and have as much experience but I guess that Bon Jovi just kept pushing harder all these years. But the Guns and Ratt did jump around the stage a little more than Jon, Richie, Dave and Huey did. That is one thing i wanna see them do: jump around in motion with the crowd like they did in Moscow in '89 or many other times before and after that. Of course , a little more guitar solos on the next record would be great. Richie is one of the best players out there and he has to sound like he did on Slippery When Wet and not like the guitarist from Matchbox 20 or Vertical Horizon. Not that they are bad but Bon Jovi is better then they are. I mean remember the shreding on Bon Jovi's debut or 7800 Fahrenhiet? They are a rock/metal group after all.
I was suprised and delighted that a lot of younger fans were there. I expected an older audience but I did like this kind of outcome better anyway.

The best fan, in my opinion, was a little 7 year old girl who had a giant X-size Jovi shirt hanging down to her toes and a Bon Jovi bandana on her head.

Anyway, it is by far the best concert I have ever seen. In fact it was so good that I am even about to buy myself Giants Stadium tics to just to see them again.

This is a memory in my mind that will never die and if I do
forget one second of that show, the Bon Jovi key-chain, shirt, stickers and Bon Jovi ONE WILD NIGHT condoms will be there to refresh me.....................................

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