A review by Darren Wileman / daz@darrenwileman.co.uk

We arrived at MK Bowl at about 11:30am on Saturday and joined the crowd at gate 6. After getting rather wet waiting for a while, the yellow coated do gooders came out and made everyone move back - serveral times, to the point that i refused to move for a total 7th time. Upon asking one of the yellow coaters i was told that we had to move back so that the gates could be opened. Strange, i thought as the gates open the other way, not into the crowd. He accepted my statement and carried on almost like they had been rumbled!! Maybe they were bored and wanted to show their authority??

About 15 minutes later, we were all back to our original positions before we had moved. About 2:15, the gates opened and our bags were "searched" all i were asked is "are there any bottles in there?" and of course i said "no" and he let me through without even asking me to open the bag. That's what i call tight security..........

We got inside the bowl and were confronted with the stage, so out came the camera!!! Serveral photos and a couple of bottles of water later, about 20 people decided to get up and run to the front (we were directly behind the pit, in the centre), so like a bunch of lemmings, so did about 3,000 other people. We were there standing from 3:15 until the boys finished at just gone 22:50.

We waited, and waited and waited for Delerious to come on. There must have been a problem with the stage or something technical as they were late coming on, (just as the heavens opened) and only did about 5 tracks before going back off. Very impressed with them, the frontman was very lively and a great band leader.

Matchbox 20 however, good as they were were just a bit subdued and their frontman was very colourful with his language. Quite surprising really as there were quite a few kids there..... One thing that bugged me, more or less between every song they did, the guy said "we want to just thank jon and the bon jovi boys for letting us do this", nice touch maybe twice, but half a dozen times????

Jovi came out at about 20:10ish and rocked the bowl. Jon was in a great mood, playing to the crowd as normal, Richie was great, but a little subdued, almost like he had some other place to be - anyone else notice that? David seemed to be having a real good time, Hugh was his normal (bit boring!) self and Tico was the powerhouse he normally is too.

The crowd rocked as much as the band i think, especially towards the end when we wouldn't let them go and almost forced them to do another, as we were singing "Livin' On A Prayer" to them, so jon turned round and proceeded to start singing. The band ran back to position and cranked it up for the last track. Not the best track for the last song as it just pumps you up that much to rock longer, maybe we should have sung "Always"

One thing that did dissapoint me a lot was that they didn' do a single track from These Days, one of my favourite albums. I was looking forward to a couple off there, but sadly not.

All in all, fantastic performance, great atmosphere, the shambles was about to begin.....

For anyone who was thinking about going to Milton Keynes but didn't, you missed an awesome BJ concert, but you certainly didn't miss your bus, as we did. The police couldn't organise a drinking session at a brewery. We were told the wrong place for the taxis first of all (We had to get back to MK coachway at J14 of the M1 before 00:35) We were held back by 2 police horses, one which was going crazy and was very scary. They are huge - i'm not small at 6'2", but i felt very intimidated by it. The reason for the horses was to move us out the way because an ambulance was trying to get out of the car park (which we didn't see)

There were no need for the police horses, if an ambulance is behind you, you move out of the way, simple as that. I sensed that something was going to kick off big time if the police didn't start acting like police and looking out for our safety.

We managed to get over the bridge and to que for the shuttle busses. We didn't move much even though there were a lot of busses there. One policeman then announced over his loud hailer that anyone wishing to walk to the station move over to the right and anyone catching a bus go left. We went right to be let out. Surprise!!! They had changed their mind and about 100 of us had lost our place in the line. We started shouting at the police to let us through, but they must have had cloth ears. Then one said that they couldn't let us through because we might try to get on the bus. That almost was the last straw. We went wild at them. It was a dangerous situation to be in, but we were finally let out at 00:15, just 20 mins before our coach left. We started walking to the station when we saw a taxi, flagged it down and managed to get to the coachway for just after 00:30, but our coach had already gone.

Thinking we were going to have to spend the night outside at the coachway, we saw a taxi stop and a couple get out, so i asked if there was a flat rate back to Leicester, he said £80, but he had just dropped off 2 people wanting to get to Leicester, so we split the cost in the end and it cost us £60 as we live just outside leicester - we got back at 03:15am

The police had no idea what they were doing, the security had no idea what they were doing, we knew what we wanted to do, but neither the police or security guards had a clue....

This will be my last time at the MK Bowl unless better organisation is displayed, and i don't think i am on my own when i say that.

If it had kicked off, there could have been injuries or fatalities, if there had been people injured, god only knows how they would have gotten out - the police wouldn't have let them through the barriers - incase they tried to get on a bus..................

Sorry for my rants, but i just needed to get them offmy chest - if u want to contact me, email daz@darrenwileman.co.uk if u had a similar experience, i am putting together something on my web site to send to the "organisers" of Satudays show. www.darrenwileman.co.uk

Conclusion: Great day, spoily by Thames Valley Police
Lasted for: 2hours 45mins
Setlist:

One Wild Night / Raise Your Hands, You Give Love A Bad Name / In These Arms / It's My Life / Born To Be My Baby / Bed of Roses / I Got the Girl / Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars / Just Older / Wild In the Streets / Blaze of Glory / Lay Your Hands On Me / Keep the Faith / Bad Medicine

Encore 1: I'll Be There For You / Say It Isn't So / I'll Sleep When I'm Dead / Tequila / Twist and Shout

Encore 2: Someday I'll Be Saturday Night / Wanted Dead Or Alive

Encore 3: Livin' On A Prayer

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