A review by Cpt. Crash / matti.valiniemi@icl.fi

It took this long for me to survive from the afterburnings of the Helsinki show, which had to be the very last show I can attend on this tour.

The show started with Livinī On A Prayer and the crowd (younger and just older) were very much into it from the very beginning. It was nice to see that even those non-fans from the big companies that support Hartwall - areena, rocked with Bon Jovi. I know this doesnīt happen often in that venue.

Bon Jovi had changed the order of the beginning of the set a bit and that was very clever move I think because now the crowdrockers didnt all come in a row. Before Itīs My Life Jon talked about Finland and Finnish audience and then they kicked ass with that song. After Itīs My Life I believe every FAN was pleasently suprised. Jon kicked off Born To Be My Baby and the crowd went wild. Although I quess the younger generation of audience didnīt propably recognise the song. But they rocked with us. they didnīt have any other choice, because band was so full of energy and audience too.

And then on to the moment of nostalgy. Dave played piano and and jon sang Runaway acoustic. no guitar, bass, or drums.. just vocals and piano. and the audience had lighters pointing to the foor.. man that was beautiful view.

Next extraordinary highlight was after Next 100 Years, when tico started banging the basedrum the way he used to do on the Crossroad - tour. Jon insisted that everybody got their hands up and then he kicked off Wild In The Streets.. WOW what a response from the people who knew the song!!!... but once again something not very familiar to the newbies, but they got into it from the first chorus too. During this song Jon gave headache to the security guys by jumping off stage and running to the side of the venue and climbing to the rail in front of the people who were in the seating area of arena.

It was a 2hour show, ended with Keep The Faith and it was no doubt one of the best rockshows held in Helsinki for a looooooong time.

And I think everyone agrees with me, because even Finnish newspaper have written awesome reviews of the show, which is not usual when it comes to Bon Jovi and finnish press.

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