Bon Jovi Mixes New With Classic Songs |
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Hartford Courant article
Over the nearly three decades, the band Bon Jovi has avoided the rut of many nostalgia acts, maintaining a focus on its new material and different ways in which to frame it.
Case in point: the curve ball of a performance the venerable pop rock act put up at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville Friday night, filling its show with revels off the band's beaten path before accommodating fans of its hits.
Lead singer Jon Bon Jovi promised the set list would be unusual, which proved to be the case as the show wore on. The early going was a straightforward accounting of the band's specialty, carefully trimmed rock outbursts propelled by hammered backbeats like the ones Tico Torres splashed onto the opener "The Radio Saved my Life Tonight." Bon Jovi made the melodic best of his signature tattered groan, frequently more methodical than combative toward lyrics as he snapped at the throb of "We Weren't Born to Follow."
The band has four official members these days, but opening act Lorenza Ponce expanded its full stage complement to seven as she laced the digestible churn of "Lost Highway" with sharp fiddle sawing. Her contribution was a fitting accent to the acoustic-powered country rock of "Whole Lot of Leaving," and she came and went as needed, disappearing as Bon Jovi and guitarist Richie Sambora got down to swapping electric licks in the insistent, repetitive "Thorn in My Side."
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