A review by andy_ash / andy_ash@lineone.net

Well were do i begin? I Had originally bought tickets for the opening day at wembley but when that caved in i wasn't looking forward to it as much. I was silly to think that. It was The best concert i've been too. everything from the weather to the support acts, Spin (unsigned band competition winner) were a great little band from Leeds, they had some really catchy songs and i wish them all best for the future. Then NIckelback came on. They were Excellent...just as good as i thought they'd be. I felt a bit sorry fro them as there new stuff didn't really go down great. The crwod didn't seem to know the words to the new material. But they got a healthy response to the silver side up stuff. Chad Kroeger was a really funny guy and he worked the audience excelently. They even fired free t-shirts out of cannons into the crowd. They played for what seemed a very quick hour, then came the main event....... The guys kicked off with last man standing which i think theuy have done pretty much all of the tour (personally i think the tour should have been called the last man standing tour, Rather appropraiate i think. I was in the gold circle and out of nowhere JbJ popped up on the catwalk and everyone went wild. They then went into rockin all over the world... I hate this song because of status quo so i just told myself this is the john foggerty version so i sang along to that. Then came the usual suspects... Bad name, cpt crash, runaway etc. One song i was very happy they played was i'd die for you. i love that song and i've always wanted to hear them play that live so that was one ambition fulfilled. One noticable thing was that Jon was feeling adventurous and actually playing some solo's instead of richie. I guess Richie's arm is still sore because bobby bandiero was filling in for richie on some solo's and there wasn't a double neck guitar in sight. They played a few songs from the new album, have a nice day, complicated, bells of freedom, story of my life and who's says uo can't go home. They were all very excellently performed. although who say's... goes on for too long in my opinion and my girlfriend agreed. Suprisingly they really mixed the set list up with some golden oldies. In these arms, a very unusual version of living in sin and a cover of the boys are back in town. The highlight of the night was richie singing i'll be there for you. He was amazing, i'm a real big richie fan and his voice was spot on. even though he was a bit drunk. That was also my girlfriends favourite part and she only know's richie from Ballad of youth. Raise your hands, bad medicine, i'll sleep when i'm dead were also in the up tempo sing along section and then They Finished the main set with livin on a prayer which was a bit touch and go as to whether they'd play it as richie's talkbox wasn't working before that for it's my life. Obviously it was some people's first time at a bj gig because they started leaving after that. they soon turned and came back when the band came back on to play Living in sin, blood on blood, wanted, some day i'll be saturday night and finally keep the faith. I've only seen bon jovi twice before that but this was by far the best performance i've seen. The new songs are coming out really well live and it was great to hear them play some of the rare oldies.
I was a bit disappointed that they didn't play anything from Bounce but from what i've read they haven't done so for the whole tour which is strange. They played for 2 hrs 45 minutes straight, and jon hardly spoke, they just kept belting out hit after hit which i was suprised at seen as jon does interact with the audience a fair bit usually. I'd lost my voice by the end of the night and i only wish i had tickets for the sunday night so i could lose it all over again.

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