I don't know if this review has been posted before but it's OK so here it is:

Gig played on: Wed 18 Sep 2002
BON JOVI - SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON


Tonight is a very special event indeed. Bon Jovi are in the house and gracing us with their enormous presence. The evergreen kings of feel-good, lighter-than-light rock are back for a London show that sold-out in a reported eight minutes. So special is this evening that there's a global webcast, and cinemas in most major British cities are welcoming competition winners through their doors to witness this rare event stadium rock in a venue the size of your average stadium toilet.

Responsible in the eighties for using up the world's peroxide, perming lotion and hairspray reservoirs, the band are now in their second decade and currently plugging new album 'Bounce'. Heavier than usual, it still sounds like its fabric softening relative. Light and sweet smelling, it too can fill an expansive tumble-drying drum with inoffensive odours as easily as this lot can level the Grand Canyon with inoffensive blue-collar anthems.

'The Jovi' manage to sidestep everyone in surreal fashion by introducing legendary Kink Ray Davies at the start of the show. Decked out in a full-length coat and shades the sight of Mr. Davies rocking and exchanging hugs with the band is possibly one of the oddest collaborations ever witnessed. After one number he leaves and it's time to get down to business.

The opening volley of 'Livin' On A Prayer', 'You Give Love A Bad Name' and new single 'Everyday' set the pace. This is feelgood city and thankfully there is no turning back. There's no mid-set ballad lull and Jon Bon keeps his foot firmly on the gas while Richie gurns his way through solo after solo sporting a leopard-skin Stetson and an appalling new, shorter haircut.

An hour passes in the blink of an eye as the mixture of hits and new material keeps on coming. High-fives are exchanged, the air is punched repeatedly and it's hard not to be swept along by the sheer euphoric, escapist rush. Given the choice between this and the ultra-earnest, grey, dreariness of their current contemporaries, such as Nickleback or The Calling, there's no contest.

They bypass any irony filters, take on every cliché in the book and revel in it, after all they've seen a million faces and by their own admission rocked them all. They take their bows, smile the widest, whitest smiles in rock and they're gone. Low on substance and high on good feeling, Bon Jovi live is very, very big but not all that clever.


Josh Rogan